SB1070 and the US Supreme Court

This is not a supreme court I have much confidence in, seeing as how they let Troy Davis get lynched, among other things...

-----------------from the New York Times-------------

Court to Weigh Arizona Statute on Immigration

By ADAM LIPTAK

NEW YORK TIMES

Published: December 12, 2011

WASHINGTON — In the space of a month, the Supreme Court has thrust itself into the center of American political life, agreeing to hear three major cases that could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives and whether President Obama wins a second term.

The court announced Monday that it would decide whether Arizona was entitled to impose tough anti-immigration measures over the Obama administration’s objections. The case joined a crowded docket that already included challenges to Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the 2010 health care overhaul law, and a momentous case on how Texas will conduct its elections.

The Texas case, which on Friday the court agreed to hear, could cause as many as four seats in the United States House of Representatives to change party control.

“It’s not just that these are big cases, but these are big cases that echo in the political arena,” said Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law and political science at Columbia University. “There is now a judicial forum for airing these political disputes.”

Arizona enacted its immigration law last year, and the Obama administration promptly sued to block four parts of it, saying they could not be reconciled with federal laws and policies.

The challenged provisions include a requirement that state law enforcement officials determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if officials have reason to believe that the individual might be an illegal immigrant. That provision also requires that the immigration status of people who are arrested be determined before they are released.

The law also makes it a crime under state law for immigrants to fail to register under a federal law and for illegal immigrants to work or to try find work. In addition, it allows the police to arrest people without warrants if they have probable cause to believe that they have done things that would make them deportable under federal law.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, blocked all four provisions.

Applauding the Supreme Court’s decision to review that ruling, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, was harshly critical of the administration.

“I was stunned at the audacity of the Obama administration to file suit against an individual state seeking to safeguard its people,” Ms. Brewer said in a statement. “That shock turned to outrage as the federal government proceeded to file suit against three more states — South Carolina, Alabama and now Utah — that followed Arizona’s lead.”

The health care and immigration decisions are likely to land in June, in the heat of the presidential campaign.

The court must act much faster in the Texas case, where its decision on Friday to stay the use of a set of election maps, created by federal judges, has thrown election planning there into disarray. Political observers believe that the new maps would increase the influence of Hispanic voters and thereby increase the number of Democrats in the House.

The court’s precedents point both ways in the health care case, and it is hard to say what the outcome will be. In the Arizona and Texas cases, recent decisions suggest that a majority of justices may look favorably on the positions of state officials, which would entail upholding the Arizona immigration law and rejecting at least a part of the court-drawn maps in Texas.

In May, the court upheld a different Arizona law, one that imposed harsh penalties on businesses that employed illegal immigrants. In a 2009 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, expressed skepticism about the continuing vitality of a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the court in Texas relied on in substituting its own maps for ones drawn by the Legislature.

Legal scholars and court historians struggled to think of another recent Supreme Court term in a presidential election year with a similar pileup of cases with sharp political and societal consequences. The political impact of the term’s rulings may, moreover, be amplified by the court’s decision last year in Citizens United, which unleashed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions.

Some experts pointed to 1992, which featured a major abortion ruling and other big decisions. But the current term may be most reminiscent of the showdown between the Supreme Court and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, when the court struck down major pieces of New Deal legislation as well as a New York law establishing a minimum wage for women and children.

“There was a whole series of blockbuster cases, each with massive political implications and economic consequences for the country,” said Jeff Shesol, the author of “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court.” That description sounds rather like the current term.

There is a great deal of happenstance in the shaping of a Supreme Court docket, and the fact that several cases arrived at the court at once does not necessarily suggest an agenda. The last term was lackluster; this one is lively.

“In most of these cases, it’s a coincidence of timing,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Texas.

The justices had little choice, for instance, in agreeing to hear a challenge to the health care law, as federal appeals courts were divided over its constitutionality and the Obama administration joined its opponents in urging the court to act quickly. But the Supreme Court did not have to signal that the case was a once-in-a-generation blockbuster by scheduling an extraordinary five and half hours of arguments.

The court had more options in deciding how to act on a request from officials in Texas in the redistricting dispute. The court could have stayed out of the matter, effectively endorsing the maps that favored Democrats, which were drawn by a special three-judge court in San Antonio that ignored a separate set of maps drawn by the Republican-dominated Legislature.

The Supreme Court could have sent the case back to the special court, directing it to give more deference to the Legislature’s maps. Or the justices could have jumped in feet first. They took the boldest route.

It was, similarly, not a sure thing that the justices would accept the Arizona case, which was one of several cases in the federal pipeline involving tough state anti-immigration laws. Lower courts had not issued a final ruling on the Arizona law, giving the justices plausible reasons to wait. Instead, they chose to weigh in on one of the most combustible issues in American politics.

Supreme Court decisions routinely have political consequences, of course, sometimes quite direct ones. In 2000, 11 years to the day before the court agreed to hear the Arizona case, the court effectively decided a presidential election, in Bush v. Gore.

Putting that case to one side (as the court has, never citing it), court watchers have to go back two decades, at least, to think of Supreme Court terms as politically consequential as the current one.

Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, pointed to the term that ended in June 1992, which included major cases raising fundamental issues of abortion, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and school desegregation. The most important of those decisions was Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the core of the right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade.

In the new crop of cases, too, the court may yet avoid creating political earthquakes.

“I would not be surprised at all if they are looking at Solomonic ways to avoid trouble in an election year,” Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University, said of the justices.

Supreme Court considers Right to Effective Counsel

This case is about the right to effective counsel for all defendants, not just accused or convicted sex offenders in Arizona...

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2 dozen states watch closely as Supreme Court considers Arizona sex offender’s appeal

By Max Levy / Cronkite News Service | Wednesday, October 5, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Around the Nation

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court was asked Tuesday to consider whether an Arizona sex offender has a right to effective counsel, not only at trial but in subsequent challenges of his conviction as well.

Luis Mariano Martinez argued that he was not able to raise the claim of ineffective counsel in his post-conviction review – because the counsel he claimed was ineffective had botched the review filing.

But the attorney for the Arizona Department of Corrections said the state provided adequate legal assistance to Martinez, though no law required it to do so. He told the justices that requiring "effective counsel" for convicts in Martinez’s situation would open up an "infinite continuum of litigation" from criminals appealing their convictions with state funds.

Ineffective assistance of counsel cases are "easy to raise and difficult to litigate," said Kent Cattani, chief counsel of criminal appeals for the Arizona attorney general’s office.

Twenty-four states supported Arizona’s case on the basis that providing counsel in the appeals process is a state choice. They argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that a ruling in Martinez’s favor would "undermine the finality of state convictions" by guaranteeing an attorney for criminals in post-conviction proceedings.

The U.S. Justice Department agreed and argued in support of Arizona.

"States are permitted to draw different lines," Jeffrey B. Wall, assistant to the solicitor general, told the justices.

Wall said that a ruling for Martinez would result in significantly more appeals of original convictions. In its brief, the Justice Department said, "prisoners would have an overwhelming incentive to argue ... counsel had been ineffective," if the justices agreed with Martinez.

Martinez’s attorney, Robert Bartels, agreed that a line needs to be drawn to prevent cyclical appeals. But he said that line needs to be drawn at least one step further, so that convicted criminals like Martinez have effective counsel when they go to claim that their previous attorney was ineffective.

"It is an absurd Catch-22 to suggest that a defendant effectively defaults his ... right to effective assistance of first post-conviction counsel ... by failing to raise and litigate such claims without the assistance of counsel," Bartels wrote in a court brief.

In 2002, Martinez was charged with sexual conduct with his then 11-year-old stepdaughter. The state’s case was based largely on expert testimony and DNA evidence.

Bartels wrote that Martinez’s trial attorney failed to research "readily available and persuasive expert testimony" that would have challenged the state’s expert. That lawyer also failed to present evidence weakening the DNA claims, Bartels wrote.

Martinez was convicted on two counts of sexual conduct with a person under the age of 15 and sentenced to consecutive terms of 35 years to life in prison.

Another state-provided attorney was assigned to Martinez’s appeal. She began paperwork for post-conviction relief – the first chance for Martinez to claim his trial counsel was ineffective – but then filed a statement saying she could find no cause for such action.

Those filings were made without consulting Martinez. Though he only speaks Spanish, she sent him a letter in English notifying him that he had 45 days to submit a petition on his own for post-conviction relief.

The 45 days passed without action by Martinez. When he filed with new counsel in 2004, the Arizona court ruled that the appellate lawyer’s actions, right or wrong, invalidated Martinez’s petition and that his arguments for her ineffectiveness were not sufficient to make an exception.

Through multiple appeals, Martinez’s legal team has argued that his state-provided lawyer failed to effectively serve him in both the trial and appeal process, squandering his opportunity to petition for better representation in the process.

The Supreme Court justices Tuesday questioned both sides about a "limiting principle," the point at which the state should stop providing legal assistance to convicted criminals.

"You have to draw the line some place and the court has already drawn (it)," Justice Samuel Alito said. "Where the line stands now, it’s drawn at a different place" than where Martinez proposed.

A million hearts just shattered: the execution of Troy Davis.

Solidarity Vigil for Troy
Arizona State University Hayden Lawn
September 21. 2011

Troy Davis was murdered tonight by the state of Georgia and the US Supreme Court,

and a million hearts were shattered.

Blessings to his family, who lost the most. We will not give up this fight.

------------------

The Death of Troy Davis

Atlanta Journal Constitution

September 21, 2011

By Andrew Cohen

The Georgia execution, carried out amid so many reasonable doubts, marks a watershed in America's grim experiment with capital punishment

In a perfect world, the execution of Troy Davis Wednesday tonight in Georgia would herald a new era in America's grim history with the death penalty. It would shake the criminal justice system out of its self-satisfied torpor and force government and the governed both to face the ugly truth about capital punishment in the United States in the twenty-first century. It would propel this question to the forefront both of the nation's political debate and the Supreme Court's docket: How many exceptions to the rule must we allow or tolerate, how many legitimate questions must linger beyond the death chamber, before we either fix the system or end the experiment?

When the state kills those whose guilt is in serious doubt, or when the state kills those to whom it has not given fair justice, it doesn't just perform an injustice upon the individual, the rule of law, and the Constitution. It also undermines the very legitimacy of the death penalty itself, for its continuing use as a sentencing option derives its civic and moral strength mostly from the fiction that it can be, and is, credibly and reliably imposed. Once our confidence in that credibility is shattered, as it should be now that Davis is gone, all that's left of the death penalty is state-sponsored retribution and the hangman's noose.

In a perfect world, the haunting execution of Troy Davis would spawn vital reforms to the clemency and parole process in states like Georgia and Texas, where such proceedings routinely make a mockery of the idea of reasoned justice. It would light a fire under local prosecutors to ensure that witnesses in capital cases are not coerced by law enforcement officials. It would cause jurors to think twice about rushing to judgments. It would force a supine Congress to reevaluate its so-called "effective death penalty" statute, which neuters legitimate post-conviction appeals. And it would at long last shame state court judges to cast off the yoke of their campaign contributors, who push them to be "tough on crime" at the expense of fealty to the Bill of Rights.

Georgia says that it has given Davis more due process than any single man would have a right to expect. Up the state appellate ladder and down again. Up to the Supreme Court and back. Hearing upon hearing. Brief upon brief. At some point, Georgia says, there has to be finality in capital cases. At some point, the justice system has to accept the work of judges and juries and impose the sentence that was initially given. There is truth to all of this. And there is both rhyme and reason to many of the rules which govern appellate law and practice in capital cases. But those rules almost always place the state's interest in finality ahead of the condemned's interest in accuracy. "Enough is enough" is a great campaign slogan -- but it's hardly a worthy motto for a civilized nation's death penalty scheme.

Here's what Davis was up against, to cite just one example. Last summer, at the request of the United States Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge William Moore held an evidentiary hearing to examine the new claims, and new evidence, presented by Davis and his attorneys. Under federal law, Judge Moore reminded the litigants and the world, Davis had the nearly insurmountable post-conviction burden of establishing by "clear and convincing evidence'' that no reasonable juror would have convicted him based upon the new evidence. Applying that standard, which flips on its head the standard applied at trial, Judge Moore unsurprisingly held that Davis had failed to meet his burden.

In a perfect world, Davis would have had his new evidence evaluated under a legal standard more tuned to ensuring the reliability and accuracy of his conviction rather than upon the timing of his execution. His case wouldn't have been shoved like so many of the rest down a sterile and formalistic legal hole forced upon the federal courts by the Clinton-era Congress. And, even if it somehow were, even if the justice system failed, Davis would have had a parole board willing to acknowledge what seems so self-evident; that an uncertain death sentence harms more than just the executed.

Last week, in an op-ed which appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, William Sessions, the former federal judge and FBI director, and a man not known for willy-nilly considerations, once again called upon Georgia to halt Davis' execution. His view of the 2010 hearing is the most accurate view I've read yet and is quite chilling. Judge Sessions wrote:

What the hearing demonstrated most conclusively was that the evidence in this case -- consisting almost entirely of conflicting stories, testimonies and statements -- is inadequate to the task of convincingly establishing either Davis' guilt or his innocence. Without DNA or other forms of physical or scientific evidence that can be objectively measured and tested, it is possible that doubts about guilt in this case will never be resolved.

Alas, the world, and the world of capital punishment in America, are far from perfect. When Georgia executed Troy Davis, despite the grave doubts cast upon his capital conviction, it wasn't just thumbing its nose at the new evidence which tends to exonerate him. It wasn't just ignoring the considered judgments of experts in criminal justice and capital cases. It wasn't just winking and nodding at the protections of the "cruel and unusual" clause of the Eighth Amendment. It was instead declaring war on all of that. It was proudly proclaiming its infidelity to a fundamental premise of American law -- that the courts, and the state, will always try their best to get things right no matter how long it takes.

Now that's he gone from the face of the earth, and whether he was guilty or not, Troy Davis will leave one of two legacies. Either his story will fade with time, as have the stories of so many other men executed under a cloud of questions about their guilt, or his story will propel meaningful change in this area of the law. His many supporters, in and out of public life, hold in their hands the ability to determine that legacy. What they could not accomplish during his lifetime they may still try to accomplish in his death; a renewed appreciation for the notion that no man, neither the high nor the low, neither the rich nor the poor, neither white nor black, deserves the lamentable injustice done this day.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/the-death-of-troy-davis/245446/

Troy Davis: Stay of Execution?

UPDATE (9/21/2011 9:35pm):

Troy's stay was denied and he was executed tonight.

Rest in Freedom, Brother Troy.

The key word is "considers", though - this isn't over yet. Show them we're ready to abolish the death penalty in America...Maybe we have finally evolved.

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Troy Davis execution delayed while US supreme court considers stay

Execution of death row inmate delayed temporarily as US supreme court intervenes to consider whether to issue a stay

• Ed Pilkington tweets from outside the prison in Jackson

• Ten reasons why Troy Davis should not be executed

Ed Pilkington in Jackson, Georgia and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 September 2011 19.24 EDT


The execution of Troy Davis was delayed temporarily on Wednesday night as the US supreme court considered a last-minute appeal just as he was due to be put to death by lethal injection.

As the first news came in at the Jackson prison that houses death row, a huge cheer erupted from a crowd of more than 500 protesters that had amassed on the other side of the road.

Davis's supporters kissed each other and threw placards which read "Not in my name" into the air.

But the jubilation was short-lived. Talk of a reprieve from the US supreme court quickly gave way to rumours of a stay, and finally the realisation that the court had only ordered a temporary delay as it considered the matter. The mood then grew more sombre as the waiting game that has now been going on for years with Davis resumed.

Until the delay it seemed almost certain that Davis would be executed. Earlier on Wednesday, Georgia's supreme court had rejected a last-ditch appeal by Davis's lawyers over the 1989 murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail, for which Davis had been convicted despite overwhelming evidence that the conviction is unreliable.

A Butts County superior court judge had also declined to stop the execution.

Davis's attorneys had filed an appeal challenging ballistics evidence linking Davis to the crime, and eyewitness testimony identifying Davis as the killer.

The White House declined to comment on the case, saying: "It is not appropriate for the president of the United States to weigh in on specific cases."

At the maximum security prison in Jackson where the execution was scheduled to take place, busloads of Troy Davis supporters from his home town of Savannah came in to register their anger and despair at what they all agree is the planned judicial killing of an innocent man.

Edward DuBose, a leader of the Georgia branch of the NAACP, said it was not an execution, but a "murder".

The protest heard from Martina Correia, Davis's eldest sister, who delivered a statement from about 20 family members gathered around her. She was heavily critical of what she described as the defiance of the state of Georgia and its inability to admit that it had made a mistake.

She pointed out that the state's parole board had vowed in 2007 that no execution would take place if there was any doubt. "Every year there is more and more doubt yet still the state pushes for an execution," she said.

Correia, who has cancer, struggled to her feet in honour of her brother, just a few hours from his probable death. But she exhorted people not to give up.

"if you can get millions of people to stand up against this you can end the death penalty. We shouldn't have to live in a state that executes people when there's doubt."

DuBose gave an account of a 30-minute conversation he had with Davis on death row on Tuesday night. "Troy wanted me to let you know – keep the faith. The fight is bigger than him."

DuBose said that whether the execution went ahead or not, the fight would continue. He said Davis wants his case to set an example "that the death penalty in this country needs to end. They call it execution; we call it murder."

Hundreds of people gathered outside the prison, many wearing T-shirts that said: "I am Troy Davis". The activist Al Sharpton said: "What is facing execution tonight is not just the body of Troy Davis, but the spirit of due justice in the state of Georgia."

Larry Coz, the executive director of Amnesty in the US, which has led the international campaign for clemency, said demonstrations were happening outside US embassies in France, Mali, Hong Kong, Peru, Germany and the UK.

"We will not stop fighting until we live in a world where no state thinks it can kill innocent people."

After winning three delays since 2007, Davis lost an appeal for clemency this week when the Georgia pardons board denied his request, despite serious doubts about his guilt.

Some witnesses who testified against Davis at trial later recanted, and others who did not testify came forward to say another man did it. But a federal judge dismissed those accounts as "largely smoke and mirrors" after a hearing Davis was granted last year to argue for a new trial, which he did not win.

Davis refused a last meal. He planned to spend his final hours meeting with friends, family and supporters.

Davis has received support from hundreds of thousands of people, including a former FBI director, former president Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI.

Parliamentarians and government ministers from the Council of Europe, the EU's human rights watchdog, had earlier called for Davis's sentence to be commuted.

Renate Wohlwend of the council's parliamentary assembly said: "To carry out this irrevocable act now would be a terrible mistake, which could lead to a tragic injustice"...

Truth in Sentencing: You may be raped.

This article was actually written a decade ago - sounds like it could have been yesterday, though...

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"NOT PART OF THE PENALTY": Judicial Abdication Of Responsibility For Protecting Prisoners From Rape

By JOANNE MARINER

Thursday, Apr. 19, 2001

Rape in prison is a terrifying and traumatic experience. It is an abuse that no inmate, whatever the reason for his incarceration, should have to endure. As the Supreme Court has emphasized, rape is simply "not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses."

Unfortunately, our justice system offers scant relief to sexually abused prisoners. Although inmates are, in principle, granted a degree of constitutional protection from harm, they face daunting obstacles to the assertion of their legal rights.

Rights Against Rape in Theory, But Not In Practice

In Farmer v. Brennan, a 1994 decision involving a transsexual inmate who sued prison authorities for failing to provide protection from rape, the Supreme Court recognized that prisoner-on-prisoner sexual exploitation is constitutionally unacceptable. Confirming the prior holdings of a number of lower courts, the Supreme Court held that a prison official violates the Eighth Amendment if, acting with deliberate indifference, he exposes a prisoner to a substantial risk of sexual assault.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. (Which came as no surprise. In his retrograde view, the Eighth Amendment should not be interpreted to cover any prison abuses. Instead, it only prohibits torturous punishments meted out by statute or by sentencing judges.) Justice Thomas apparently believes that rape in prison is inevitable. In his dissent, he stated that "[p]risons are necessarily dangerous places; they house society's most antisocial and violent people in close proximity with one another. Regrettably, some level of brutality and sexual aggression among [prisoners] is inevitable no matter what the guards do . . . unless all prisoners are locked in their cells 24 hours a day and sedated." (quotations omitted)

Although the law is set by the Court's majority, many lower court judges appear to hold views approaching those of Justice Thomas. Notwithstanding the relevant legal rules, many judges seem eager to abdicate responsibility for protecting prisoners from abuse. While they may be less explicit than Thomas in justifying their disregard of prisoners' claims of abuse, their actions, in case after case, reflect a similar bias.

Courts' Toleration of Prison Rape, and Official Indifference

Prisoners seeking recourse for violations of their constitutional rights — include the Eighth Amendment violations that occur if officials are deliberately indifferent to a prisoner's risk of rape — can file civil actions in federal court. Yet such cases rarely succeed. Having reviewed dozens of prisoners' legal filings in the course of research on prisoner-on-prisoner rape, I can attest that even the most compelling cases are unlikely to survive judicial scrutiny.

Why is that so? To begin with, prisoners are among the least lucrative of clients, and certainly the least sympathetic to juries, so that few lawyers are willing to litigate on their behalf. The vast majority of cases challenging prison abuses are thus filed by inmates acting pro se — in other words, on their own behalf. Often filing handwritten complaints that are scribbled and hard to decipher, and lacking knowledge of legal procedure, prisoners are easily tripped up and tricked by the law's procedural complexities. As a result, even cases challenging serious abuses in prison are frequently dismissed in the early stages of litigation.

Moreover, as Justice Thomas's words show, many federal judges view prisoners' legal claims with an extremely cynical eye. Perhaps they entirely disbelieve prisoners' complaints of abuse, preferring to focus their concern on the constraints under which correctional authorities operate. Perhaps they simply are — as Justice Thomas seems to be — resigned to tolerating prison violence and exploitation as somehow inevitable.

Their caution may, to some extent, reflect their belief that crucial policy and budgetary decisions affecting prison conditions are made elsewhere, and that guards and other officials should not be blamed for the predictable abuses that result. But the buck must stop somewhere. By such reasoning, the courts have ensured near-complete impunity for abuses.

Judicial Rationalizations for "Inevitable" Abuse

The reasoning behind the 1988 decision in Chandler v. Jones is indicative of the tendency — although in that case, the court's comments were more candid than most. The case involved an inmate who was sexually pressured and harassed after being transferred to a dangerous housing unit. The federal district court dismissed the case, explaining that "sexual harassment of inmates in prisons would appear to be a fact of life."

Absolving prison officials of responsibility for the prison's poor conditions, the court said that the officials at least "made the best of a bad situation." The decision reflects the notion — apparently deeply ingrained — that prison abuse is an inevitable truth officials cannot change.

The decision in Kish v. County of Milwaukee, issued in 1971 by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, reflects similar thinking. Ruling against two inmates who were sexually assaulted, the court suggested that sexual assaults were frequent in the overcrowded jail under consideration, but that prison officials could not be blamed for the problem. As the court explained: "the assaults were a result of the physical layout and overcrowding of the jail, both matters beyond the control of the defendant."

The courts' tendency to overlook abuses is strongly reinforced by the requirement in such cases that prison officials have "actual knowledge" of the problem. Under this standard, unless the court finds that a prison official was personally aware of the plaintiff's risk of rape, it must rule in favor of the defendant. In other words, the legal standard allows court to dismiss even those cases in which the risk of rape would have been obvious to any reasonable person in the official's position.

Prisons as a Barometer

Not all federal judges are insensitive to prison abuses. Indeed, a few worthy efforts have been made to put a stop to prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse — most notably, the rulings in LaMarca v. Turner, issued in 1987 by a federal district court in the Southern District of Florida, and Redman v. County of San Diego, issued in 1990 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet it is fair to say these rulings are the exception.

As many have noted, the state of a country's prisons is a telling indicator of its level of civilization. The barbarity of sexual assault in prison reflects poorly on our society, and on our courts.

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Joanne Mariner, a FindLaw columnist, is deputy director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. She has visited scores of penal facilities in the United States and Latin America. Human Rights Watch's Report on prison rape, entitled No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons, was published today (date of article publication). More information on prison rape can also be found on Human Rights Watch's website.

PA May Kill Mumia: Supreme Court

Slightly revised for current info. Demand that Attorney General Holder open a civil rights investigation into the prosecution and conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal. This is criminal. The man should be free, not facing execution again.

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Monitor http://www.freemumia.com/ and http://abu-jamal-news.com/ for news, analysis and emergency response plans.

The Supreme Court has tossed out a lower court ruling that nullified the death sentence for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. The appeals court now has the option of re-imposing the death sentence or ordering a new federal trial to hear other claims of injustice raised by Abu-Jamal.

No Death Penalty for Mumia!

In Philadelphia demonstrate Wednesday, Jan 20 at 4pm at the SE corner of City Hall (Juniper St.). Bring signs and noisemakers (pots, pans, whistles, etc). Bring copies of any Mumia literature you have. At the demonstration International Concerned Friends & Family of Mumia Abu Jamal spokespeople will give updates and legal analysis.

Outside of Philadelphia: if you cannot be in Philadelphia tomorrow, please organize emergency response activities in your community. Email icffmaj@aol.com and let them know what you plan. Send photos/video/audio of your events that can be shared online

From CNN http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/19/scotus.abu.jamal/

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has tossed out a lower court ruling that nullified the death sentence for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal.

He has been an outspoken activist from behind bars, claiming there were procedural errors during his capital sentencing, and that too few blacks were on the jury. Pennsylvania officials were appealing a federal court ruling on the sentencing question that went in Abu-Jamal's favor in 2008.

The justices made their announcement Monday, ordering a federal appeals court to revisit its earlier ruling granting a new sentencing hearing. The high court last year denied Abu-Jamal's separate petition for a new trial.

The appeals court now has the option of re-imposing the death sentence or ordering a new federal trial to hear other claims of injustice raised by Abu-Jamal.