Oct. 28 USA: The Miers Impact Put the brakes on a bill that speeds up executions She's not going to the U.S. Supreme Court after all, but Harriet Miers helped further the cause of justice this week - if only indirectly. Her planned confirmation hearing figured in a welcome decision to postpone Senate action on a bill that launches an unconscionable assault on judicial fairness. Amid the press of confirmation business, the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) scrapped a hearing Wednesday on the innocuously titled Streamlined Procedures Act. Specter should be in no rush to revisit this misguided bill, even if he has time on his hands now that Miers has pulled out. The measure would curtail sharply federal courts' ability to review habeas-corpus claims by convicts. In murder cases, that could mean a death-row inmate doesn't get a fair shot at proving innocence - despite the life-and-death stakes and recent examples of wrongful convictions. Dozens of convicted murderers across the country have been exonerated by new evidence recently. In many cases, their fight to overturn their conviction dragged on for years. After he was jailed in 1981 in the rape-murder of a Delaware County woman, Nicholas Yarris spent 22 years under a death sentence before being exonerated by DNA evidence 2 years ago. Americans rightly disturbed by the flaws in the capital punishment system should be outraged at this effort: It would take precious time off the clock for a wrongly convicted person whose life or freedom hangs in the balance. It's bizarre, too, to recall that Congress only last year passed the Innocence Protection Act. That legislation established a multimillion-dollar fund to improve representation for capital defendants. The "streamlined" measure is treacherous backsliding, disguised by a cynically misleading title. The bill is opposed by the states' chief justices, as well as the administrators who run state courts. You might expect these folks to welcome less 2nd-guessing by the federal courts. Instead, state court officials say there's no evidence of unusual delays in litigating inmates' claims. Congress already imposed strict limits on habeas appeals after the Oklahoma City bombing, responding to victims' advocates pleas for quicker "closure" in criminal cases. Specter's amendments to the habeas bill don't make a bad bill more palatable. There's simply no appeal to the Streamlined Procedures Act. It should be dropped. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer) **************************** The families left behind We hardly give them a second thought - if we notice them at all. But the family members of people who have been executed are no longer willing to suffer in silence. Their stories of survival after their parents, children or siblings were executed should give the public yet another reason to abolish the death penalty. At the very least, it should spur debate about whether executions are creating a class of victims who are being traumatized by state killing machines. It goes without saying that family members and loved ones of murder victims deserve sympathy and support. They deserve justice from the courts, which should hold killers accountable, and if necessary, lock them away for life. But the criminal justice system is imperfect; innocent people facing execution have been freed by post conviction DNA evidence. Some prosecutors have engaged in unethical tactics to win murder convictions; many poor defendants have been represented by incompetent lawyers; and some courts, including the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, are focused on process - whether appeals were filed on time, for example - rather than on justice. On Thursday, family members of people who were executed gathered in Austin to launch an initiative called, "No Silence, No Shame." The event kicked off this weekend's conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Robert Meeropol, whose parents were executed in 1953 said no one has studied how children are affected when a parent is executed or whether society pays a cost for that. Meeropol founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children to honor his parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in the 1950s for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. "Nobody ever talks about the children of those who have been executed," Meeropol said. "Nobody seems to care about them or know what impact this will have on them. I have a particular mission to bring to the attention of the American public that there are an untold number of children who are victims, and we have no idea what toll executions are taking on their lives." If we needed another reason to abolish the death penalty, then families, particularly children, of executed people have provided a good one. (source: Editorial, Austin American-Statesman) ********************* The pointless brutality of capital punishment It was snowing in Salt Lake City on the night the state of Utah exacted its punishment on John Taylor. He was the 3rd person executed in the United States that wintry week early in February 1996. Only the manner of his death made Taylor's case newsworthy: he chose to be shot by firing squad, just like Gary Gilmore at the same prison 19 years earlier. Taylor, 36, made his choice as a kind of personal protest against capital punishment. Utah's previous execution, by lethal injection, had been carried out like a surgical operation, quiet and efficient. But Taylor, a convicted child murderer, insisted he would not die "flapping like a fish" on a gurney. The state would have to kill him with violence; just as Singapore is proposing to rid itself of young Australian Nguyen Tuong Van with a rope. A nobody in life, Taylor got the attention he sought in death. An Amnesty International representative declared: "Death by firing squad - bloody, unsanitary, untidy - forces us to come face to face with the sheer brutality of what we judiciously call capital punishment." The setting was also significant. In Utah, the planned spilling of Taylor's blood echoed 19th century Mormon teachings about atonement and retribution. And so the international press descended on the Utah State Prison, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. When I turned up on the afternoon of the execution, a guard at the gate marvelled that someone from as far away as Australia was paying attention. I was apprehensive; unsure what I would encounter. What I found was a slick operation, like an awards night. A media centre had been set up in a gym; a prison spokesman in neat collar and tie distributed information sheets. Far from being embarrassed, the state of Utah was proud of its efficiency. Hence the statistics (48 executions since 1854); information on Taylor's last day (final meal: pizza with the lot); details of how he would die - in a metal chair, secured with Velcro fasteners, with a hood on his head and a circular white cloth target on his chest, facing five men with .30 calibre hunting rifles standing seven metres away. One rifle would have a blank cartridge. Each marksman could go home unsure if they had committed a state-sanctioned murder. The execution would be watched from behind one-way mirrors by 21 official witnesses, representing the law, the condemned man, and the media. A ballot was to be held. This worried me. There was something appalling about the clinical machinery of death; this decidedly premeditated killing. Here was a lottery I felt lucky to lose. So news of Taylor's death came second-hand. The time: 12.07am, slightly ahead of schedule. His last words (quoting from a poem): "remember me and let me go". The aftermath: photographers allowed into the execution chamber only after blood was hosed off black plastic beneath and behind the chair. I didn't see this. Yet still the experience left me drained. And any doubts I had about capital punishment were gone. Ritualised killing can never be condoned. Exposure to it only confirms the barbarity. In his account of Gary Gilmore's life and death, Norman Mailer described a witness to that execution saying in disgust as he left: "What have we accomplished? There aren't going to be less murders." And, of course, there haven't been. Just as - whatever Singapore's legal authorities may say about the death sentence being a deterrent - there will always be people willing to risk all for the dubious rewards of the drug trade. Australia is right to do whatever it can to save Nguyen from the gallows. And Barry Jones is right to insist that his party should be doing much more to try to prevent a pointless death. There must have been times recently when ALP leader Kim Beazley's thoughts on Jones echoed those of King Henry II about Thomas Becket: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" Some of the party president's comments about ALP policies haven't been helpful. But on the issue of capital punishment Jones has been consistent. He also has credibility. In 1967, Jones was at the forefront of attempts to save Ronald Ryan, the last man executed in Australia. So it is not surprising for him to insist that the ALP "should be arguing a powerful moral case". As usual, however, politics complicates things. Alexander Downer talks of the need for the Government to be circumspect. And it is hypocritical for any politician to oppose Nguyen's hanging but not the execution of convicted Bali bombers - by guns, like Taylor and Gilmore in Utah. The public release of Nguyen's letters home this week revealed him to be a young man concerned more about others than himself. This is not an abstract matter of international law and diplomatic tap-dancing. Singapore is planning to kill a young Australian. There is always a poignant element of human frailty in these cases: Ryan composing his last letter on a length of toilet paper in 1967; bare feet protruding from a prison blanket after the hanging of Australians Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers in Malaysia in 1986; the strap around Taylor's neck to stop him slumping forward and spoiling the shooters' aim in Utah 10 years later. What has been accomplished? Nothing. (source: The Age - Alan Attwood is a Melbourne writer and former New York correspondent) ************************** Capital punishment ethics debated "Could you pull the switch or perform the injection?" asked Sister Helen Prejean to a transfixed crowd. "If theres a part of our soul that holds back, then theres a part of our soul that has not said yes to the death penalty." Prejeans challenge to the audience was one of many during a thought-provoking presentation about capital punishment that packed the seats in Kresge Auditorium last night. Organized by the Aurora Forum and moderated by Human Biology Prof. William Abrams, the discussion sought to increase awareness and provoke discussion about the use of capital punishment in the United States. Drawing upon personal stories, moral reasoning and empirical evidence, Stanford Law School Prof. Larry Marshall and activist Prejean spoke with conviction about the flaws of the capital punishment system and put forward their case for abolishing the death penalty. Religious faith provided a background for the commentary of both speakers. The Catholic Prejean shared how she became involved in the plight of the poor after reading how "Jesus was always on the side of the people considered human waste in his day." She also discussed her dissatisfaction with selective quotation of punitive passages in the Bible by conservatives like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. "If you look at the progression in the Bible," she said, "more and more the direction is not to impose vengeance. Love becomes the dominant theme." Marshall, who identifies strongly with his Jewish background, recalled how a prayer he heard on Yom Kippur in 1990 galvanized him to get involved in a death penalty case. "You can change the decree because you pray and throw yourself into the work," he said. "I had to take the case or else I would have to call myself a fraud." Personal stories such as these played a large role in the presentations of the 2 speakers. Marshall discussed his work with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School, and Prejean recounted several stories from her books "Dead Man Walking" and "The Death of Innocents" about her experiences accompanying death row inmates to their executions. "What I hope people hear are the intensely personal experiences of the speakers," said moderator Abrams in an interview with The Daily. "I have 2 death penalty cases, and I cannot articulate the profound emotional experience it has on you." The speakers personal anecdotes and kept much of the audience captivated for the length of the presentation. "They did an excellent job combining the emotive, personal and statistical parts of the issue," said freshman Erik Goldman, who attended the event as part of a class on moral reasoning. Marshall spoke on how the death penalty is still a major problem in California, citing the fact that 648 prisoners are currently on death row, with 6 people up for execution in the next few months. Both speakers also advocated life without parole as a more morally and fiscally responsible alternative to the death penalty. Most of all, however, Prejean emphasized the affect that the power to kill has on society. With tongue in cheek, she applied the vengeful attitude of capital punishment to other crimes. "'You rape, now you're going to feel what it's like," she said. "Every Friday night, rape squad!' Why dont we do that? Its because of what happens to the guards on the rape squad. What does it do to us when we have the power to decide who to kill?" Faced with the tough question of how to deal with cruel murderers like Adolf Eichmann and Richard Allen Davis, Marshall assented to the fact that criminal justice is not always clear-cut, but nevertheless insisted that capital punishment is an unsatisfactory way to deal with the problem. He asked a student questioner from the audience, "Is the marginal sense of safety you get from executing the prisoner worth a system that kills people based on racism or arbitrary geographic disparities, people who are mentally retarded or poor people who dont have lawyers?" When asked about ways to solve the problems related to capital punishment, Prejean highlighted the importance of discourse, "the American people say they support the death penalty, but thats because we havent reflected on it. The more we educate people, then the more the people themselves will become the voice." Prejean made a special appeal to the students in the audience to engage in dialogue with their politicians, noting that "politicians love being looked up to by the young. Theyre always talking with the young people." Marshall too noted his hope for change. "There were 130 death sentences last year, compared to 320 every year going back just 7 or 8 years ago - theres been a real turn of the tide," he said. He also spoke optimistically about an ongoing California commission that is studying the fairness of the application of the death penalty. The audience reacted positively throughout the event, with bursts of laughter at Prejean's wit, and many people lined up to ask questions after the presentation. Suzanna Brickman, a 3rd-year law student, said, "It's very inspirational to have somebody like Larry Marshall here at Stanford and being able to attract such international figures as Sister Helen." (source: Stanford Daily) NEW JERSEY: Officials: Murderer gets hug from warden: Transsexual convict named 'inmate of month' A transsexual who was sprung from Death Row on a legal technicality after killing two police officers has been given an "inmate of the month" award by the womens prison where she is currently serving a life term, according to state corrections department officials. Leslie Ann Nelson, 47, was given a certificate and got a hug from Charlotte Blackwell, warden at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in northern New Jersey, after she was named "maximum security inmate worker of the month" for August, officials said. A guard who works at the prison and other law enforcement officials reacted with outrage yesterday at the recognition of Nelson, who admitted she gunned down two cops 10 years ago as they attempted to execute a search warrant at her Haddon Heights home. Camden County Prosecutors Office investigator John McLaughlin and Haddon Heights police officer John Norcross were shot dead on April 20, 1995 when Nelson -- known as Glenn Nelson until a 1992 sex-change operation -- opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9-millimeter handgun. The officers went to her house to search for illegal weapons. "They dont have an officer of the month or an employee of the month, but we have inmate of the month," said one angry Mahan prison guard who asked not to be identified. "And the inmate of the month ends up being a cop-killer who gets a big hug from the warden. Its disgraceful." Nelson, who works in the prison law library as a paralegal, was given the award for tutoring other inmates on literacy, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Matt Schuman. "The idea there is to have restorative justice, to try to get programs that encourage inmates to behave the right way or to make amends for the behavior that got them into prison in the first place," Schuman said. "A teacher or a supervisor nominates the inmates, and people arent judged before they are given the certificate on the crime they committed." Schuman said over the course of a year, about 10 % of the women in lockup, or around 120 inmates, will receive an inmate worker or inmate student of the month at the prison that houses 1,086 convicts. Last Thursday, the award winners were treated to their annual luncheon that included a menu of wrapped turkey, tuna, or vegetarian sandwiches, choice of a jelly or glazed donut, and soda, Schuman said. Law enforcement groups from around the state reacted with disgust yesterday. "I think its outrageous. Its insulting to every cop that gave his or her life in the service," said Joseph Carmen, an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police Local 200, which represents approximately 7,000 corrections officers statewide. Jeff Smith, president of another FOP guards union, called Nelsons award "a slap in the face." "We think its ludicrous because regardless of (Nelsons) record while she has been incarcerated, it doesnt negate the fact that she killed two officers in cold blood," Smith said. "This is a heinous, heinous crime. 2 people are dead and dozens of family members will be affected for rest of their lives, and this guy is getting recognition. Its almost like among his peers, hes a shining star." Haddon Heights police chief Ronald Shute could barely bring himself to speak. "If I had a comment, you wouldnt be able to print it," Shute said. The Camden County Prosecutors Office declined to comment, citing rules regarding pre-trial publicity, according to spokesman Bill Shralow. Shute and others said news of the award was especially hard to swallow because it comes just a few months before jury selection in another Nelson trial. In June 2006, she will head to court for a 3rd time so a jury can decide her penalty. Nelson was twice sentenced to death for the slayings, but the state Supreme Court overturned the 2nd death sentence in 2002 in a ruling that stated the jury could have been confused by the judges instructions. The Attorney Generals Office is seeking the death penalty again, while Nelson has said she wants a life term. (source: The Trentonian) SOUTH CAROLINA: Death Row inmate convicted of killing parents to appeal conviction A death row inmate convicted of killing his parents in Rock Hill in 1997 has given his lawyer permission to file a new challenge of his conviction. James Robertson was convicted of beating his parents to death with a hammer and baseball bat. Prosecutors say he wanted his share of a 2 million dollar inheritance. Robertson received permission in February to drop his appeals and be put to death. But Robertson filed papers in June saying he deserved a new trial because his defense attorneys were ineffective and prosecutors committed misconduct during his trial. The state Supreme Court delayed his execution in July to give him time to file his appeal, called post-conviction relief. Rock Hill lawyer Michael Brown was appointed last month to handle Robertson's case. (source: WIS-TV News) ALABAMA: Dec. 1 sentencing date set for La. suspect convicted in Alabama murder Serial killing suspect Jeremy Bryan Jones should learn December First whether he'll be sentenced to death for the 2004 rape and shooting of an Alabama woman. A jury recommended the death penalty yesterday for Jones, who also faces murder charges in New Orleans. Jurors in the Alabama case had the option of recommending life in prison without parole over execution by lethal injection. The judge isn't bound by the jury's decision when Jones is sentenced in December. The 32-year-old was convicted Wednesday of rape, burglary, sexual abuse and kidnapping during capital murder. That clears the way for his possible prosecution in Georgia and Louisiana. Investigators say he may be linked to ten other killings. Jones is charged in the death of Katherine Collins, a 45-year-old New Orleans woman whose body was found in February of 2004. And he's a suspect in the April 2004 disappearance of a woman in the Atlanta area. (source: Associated Press) ***************** Alabama jury recommends death for accused serial killer A jury Thursday voted 10-2 in recommending the death penalty for serial killing suspect Jeremy Bryan Jones for his capital murder conviction in the 2004 rape and shooting death of a Mobile County woman while he was high on drugs. Circuit Judge Charles Graddick set sentencing for Dec. 1. The jury had the option of recommending life in prison without parole over execution by lethal injection. The judge isn't bound by the jury's penalty. Jones, 32, of Miami, Okla., was convicted Wednesday of rape, burglary, sexual abuse and kidnapping during capital murder, clearing the way for his possible prosecution in separate slayings in Georgia and New Orleans. Investigators say he may be linked to 10 other killings. In statements to sheriff's investigators, Jones admitted killing Lisa Marie Nichols, 44, of rural Turnerville on Sept. 17, 2004 while high on methamphetamines. In his trial testimony, however, he blamed the victim's neighbor for the murder, but prosecutors punched holes in that account. The neighbor died in August. Nichols' daughter, Jennifer Murphy of Theodore, hugged one of the prosecutors after hearing the jury's penalty decision. "This was our goal. We've accomplished our goal," she said. "The hard part is over." "If ever anybody deserved the death penalty it's Jeremy Jones," said Assistant Attorney General William Dill. Jones, wearing a suit and tie, stood between his 2 attorneys and showed little emotion to the jury's decision. Before being led away to jail, he placed his fist over his heart and reached out to his girlfriend Vicki Freeman of Douglasville, Ga., who was seated nearby. Defense attorney Greg Hughes had urged the jury to recommend life without parole, arguing that Jones is "sick" and a victim of a chaotic upbringing. "He has a spark in him of humanity," Hughes said. "Death is not proper punishment for someone who is sick." At the time of his Alabama arrest on Sept. 21, 2004, Jones, who was using an alias, was wanted in Oklahoma for rape and failure to register in 1997 as a sex offender. He also had 1992 burglary and theft charges in Missouri. Assistant Attorney General Corey Maze told jurors that the aggravating circumstances - burglary, kidnapping and rape - warranted a death sentence for killing a "hard-working" woman who had raised two children by herself and was helping raise 2 grandchildren. "He violated her home. He violated her freedom. He violated her body. He didn't stop there. He violated her soul," Maze said. Forensic psychologist Dr. Daniel Koch, a defense witness, said he tested Jones and concluded that Jones had untreated Attention Deficit Disorder and was prone to go into fits of rage. Dr. Doug McKeown, the prosecution psychologist, found that long-term and chronic drug abuse contributed to Jones' anti-social behavior. But he concluded that at the time of the Nichols slaying, Jones was able to distinguish right from wrong. Nichols, who lived alone, was shot 3 times in the head, splashed with gasoline and burned, according to testimony in the Mobile County Circuit Court trial that began Oct. 17. The attack occurred a day after Hurricane Ivan struck the area, knocking out electrical services to the victim's rural home. Jones also is charged in separate murders in New Orleans and Georgia and has been described by investigators as a serial killing suspect, who could be linked to at least 10 other murders, including the April 15, 2004 disappearance of metro Atlanta hairdresser Patrice Endres. Jones is charged with murder in the death of Amanda Greenwell, a 16-year-old in Douglasville, Ga., whose remains were found in April 2004, and Katherine Collins, a 45-year-old New Orleans woman whose body was found inFebruary 2004. In a recorded phone call to a former friend, Jones admitted killing Nichols while high on drugs. "It was like a nightmare, I was in a movie," Jones said in the Dec. 10 call from jail. "I was higher than I had ever been in my whole life." (source: Tuscaloosa News) FLORIDA: 1 of 4 suspects in Xbox beating deaths pleads guilty In Daytona Beach, 1 of the 4 men accused in the 2004 beating deaths of 6 people pleaded guilty Thursday and will avoid the death penalty. Robert Anthony Cannon, 19, of Deltona, agreed to testify against the other defendants and now faces life in prison without parole. Cannon plead guilty to 14 charges, including 6 for capital 1st degree murder, 5 counts of abusing a dead human body, 1 count of armed burglary of a dwelling, 1 count of a conspiracy to commit a crime. Jerone Hunter, 19, Michael Salas, 19, and Troy Victorino, the 28-year-old alleged mastermind, are also accused. Investigators say Victorino organized the attack to retrieve an Xbox video game system he lost when he was kicked out of a different house where he was squatting. The 4 allegedly barged into the Deltona home with baseball bats and bludgeoned the victims, who raged in age from 17 to 34, and a small dog. The state is seeking the death penalty at their Jan. 3 trial. Investigators say all have confessed but Victorino, who has said he was drunk and passed out in a bar when the killings took place. ******************** Port St. Lucie killer gets new sentencing hearing A death row inmate who fatally stabbed his wife's aunt during a robbery at her Port St. Lucie home will get a new sentencing hearing, the Florida Supreme Court decided Thursday. The justices unanimously upheld the 1st-degree murder conviction of Daniel Ely Perez, 27, but they voted 5-2 to vacate his death sentence. Justices Charles Wells and Peggy Quince dissented on that issue. Perez was convicted of 1st-degree murder for the August 2001 death of Susan Martin. A co-defendant, Calvin C. Green, 23, is serving a 15-year sentence for manslaughter. The Supreme Court majority found Martin's death was "unnecessarily torturous, consciousless and pitiless," but that factor was improperly used to justify the death sentence. Perez contended Green committed the murder on his own and no other eyewitness evidence was present to contradict his testimony, the justices wrote. Sentencing evidence will be presented to a new jury, which will make a recommendation to the judge. The only alternative to death is life in prison without parole. *********************************** Justices say sexual predator expansion not retroactive An offender who did not qualify as a sexual predator when sentenced cannot later receive that designation even if the criteria is changed to include his crime, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Sexual predators must register with the state for the rest of their lives and their whereabouts are public information. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski said she expects the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to affect relatively few convicts. "The numbers are very small," she said. Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman Tom Berlinger said in an e-mail that the agency's lawyers agree that most of the state's 5,400 designated sexual predators will be unaffected. FDLE lawyers also noted the Legislature could amend the law in response to the high court's opinion because it was not based on a constitutional right but on the wording of the Florida Sexual Predator Act itself. Chief Justice Barbara Pariente wrote that the law plainly says that sexual predator designations must be made at sentencing, not later, except for out-of-state convictions. John Richard Therrien did not meet the criteria when he was sentenced, she wrote. Therrien was 16 in 1996 when charged with molesting a 9-year-old girl in Pensacola. Prosecuted as an adult, Therrien pleaded no contest in August 1997 to attempted sexual battery by a person under 18 on a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious assault. The judge withheld adjudication and placed Therrien on probation for 5 years with a suspended jail sentence of 11 months, 15 days. The Legislature subsequently changed sexual predator criteria to include attempted sexual battery by a person under 18 on a child under 12. 3 years after Therrien was sentenced, a judge granted the state's request to designate him as sexual predator under the revised law. That decision was upheld by the 1st District Court of Appeal, but the Supreme Court quashed the appellate ruling. (source for all: Associated Press) ***************** Clarify state death law----OUR OPINION: EXECUTION SHOULD REQUIRE UNANIMOUS VOTES BY JURIES Among the 39 states that use the death penalty, Florida is the only one that requires a simple majority of jurors to vote to impose execution. All the other states require a unanimous jury vote to put someone on death row. To protect the integrity of Florida's death penalty laws and make sure that they are administered as fairly as possible, the Florida Supreme Court has asked the Legislature to act to require the unanimous vote. At least 2 South Florida legislators agree with the court and, commendably, are acting on its request. Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, and Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors, have asked legislative staff to craft a bill proposal. The Legislature should follow up and adopt the unanimous-vote provision in the 2006 session. The justices are asking the Legislature to ensure the death penalty's constitutionality in light of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Ring vs. Arizona, which said that juries, not judges, must approve death sentences. The ruling raised uncertainties among trial judges, said Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero in his request to the Legislature. Some U.S. high court rulings leave lower courts the task of determining the practical effects of their decisions on current law. Lower courts must sort through the nuances, which is what prompted the Florida justices to seek more clarity. But there is another compelling reason to raise the bar on jury votes in murder trials. Recent exonerations of death row inmates in Florida and around the country have exposed weaknesses in the justice system. These failures must be addressed by lawmakers and the courts. A simple majority vote for execution is a weak standard for the ultimate sentence. Florida should require a unanimous vote when someone is sentenced to death. (source: Opinion: Miami Herald)
