FW: What’s the matter with Alabama?
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: The Marshall Project [mailto:info=themarshall...@mail229.wdc02.mcdlv.net] On Behalf Of The Marshall Project
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 5:35 AM
Subject: What’s the matter with Alabama?
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Opening Statement |
Edited by Andrew Cohen |
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Opening Statement is our pick of the day’s criminal justice news. Not a subscriber? Sign up. For original reporting from The Marshall Project, visit our website. |
When it comes to the death penalty, Alabama stands alone. It is the only state in the nation that continues to allow non-unanimous jury verdicts in capital cases and permits judges to “override” juries that sentence murderers to life-without-parole instead of death. A new Supreme Court case has put pressure on state officials to rein in those judges and to require jury unanimity. But Alabama prosecutors say their long-standing capital regime is both constitutional and practical. In collaboration with AL.com, here is Kent Faulk’s report on Alabama’s outlier status. The Marshall Project Dylann Roof on trial. 67 potential jurors, nearly 75 percent of them white, 70 percent of them women, will converge this morning on the federal courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina, for final jury selection in the case of a young man accused of mass murder. It is a rare case of the feds seeking a hate crime conviction and the death penalty, rejecting a plea offer that would have resulted in a life sentence without parole for the racist defendant. The Post and Courier Related: A genteel Southern city is forced to confront its racist past. The Washington Post TMP Context: Meet Roof’s defender. The Marshall Project "Let us not try to make this out to be something that it is not." In a raucous news conference Tuesday a Louisiana sheriff lashed out at critics who denounced his handling of the investigation into the road-rage death of former football star Joe McKnight. He also announced the arrest of Ronald Gasser, a white man, now charged with manslaughter for killing McKnight, whose death sparked racially-charged protests against the slow pace of police work in the case. The Advocate “There’s a lot of anxiety out there… Everything changed overnight.” You think your life is chaotic? Try being an immigration lawyer in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration. It’s not because President Obama was such a friend to undocumented immigrants; his officials have deported 2 million of them in the past eight years. It’s because what Donald Trump has proposed preys on the vulnerabilities felt by the men, women, and children left behind. Some immigrants, fearing deportation, even are asking their attorneys if they can emigrate to Canada. The Atlantic Locked up for the holidays. Tens of thousands of American teenagers are behind bars each holiday season, a particularly gloomy time for them and their families no matter what the reason for their confinement. But officials in states like Oklahoma, Maryland, and Louisiana have long tried to make December a little less harsh for prisoners. Some get small presents, others with a history of good behavior get to home, and others try to hold small parties or bring parents to detention facilities so families can at least be together. Pew Charitable Trusts
Georgia executed William Sallie last night, the ninth murderer it has killed this year, a record for the state. The next scheduled execution is set for Thursday night in Alabama. The Marshall Project A state judge in Texas frees hundreds of immigrant families from detention because the federal facilities don’t meet state child care licensing standards. The Huffington Post Can Oakland, California, “the new capital of legal weed,” begin to undo the damage done by the war on drugs? California Sunday Magazine An issue on trial this week in Alabama: Why the number of mentally ill prisoners in the state continues to grow even as the overall number of inmates decreases. AL.com Connecticut became a model for prison reform because of the breadth of the judicial and legislative changes it was willing to make. The Crime Report
A dad, a death, a murder, and a looming appeal. Justin Ross Harris was sentenced to life without parole plus 32 years for leaving his 22-month-old son to die in a hot car. Here’s why the sentence stand a good chance of reversal. Lawnewz Related: The harshest possible punishment. Atlanta Journal Constitution What will it take? How much evidentiary proof should it take to convince jurors that the police should be held accountable for the deaths of civilians. By Conor Friedersdorf. The Atlantic Related: Don’t blame the jury. The Washington Post Why cops don’t shoot to wound. Because it’s much harder to hit a moving arm or leg and because wounded doesn’t equal dead. Police One Ambush politics. Ambush shootings of police officers are up sharply this year and beleaguered forces are quite reasonably taking steps to protect themselves. Will the new tactics exacerbate tensions between cops and the communities they serve? The Trace “Ordinary people.” The Boston police department aims to get into the social media surveillance game, threatening privacy for all. The Washington Post
Turf War of the Day: There are mixed signals coming from officials in Washington and South Carolina about a federal trial for Michael Slager, the cop whose state murder trial ended Monday with a hung jury. The Washington Post Appeal of the Day: Florida officials aren’t happy with the way their supreme court is restricting capital punishment in the state, so they are asking the justices in Washington to intercede. Miami Herald Lawsuit of the Day: Police in New York a few months ago scaled back their public disclosure of discipline records. Now the NYPD faces a transparency lawsuit seeking a restoration of that access. New York Daily News Equation of the Day: The relationship between race and the imposition of solitary confinement is as complicated as it is obvious. The Atlantic Video of the Day: A mini-documentary argues that Tyrone Noling is innocent of murder in an Ohio case that has swirled through state courts for decade. The Plain Dealer |
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