Diablogrl
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2002
- Posts
- 572
I'm sure you all have talked about this issue over and over again, but as a semi-newbie, I'm curious to hear what you all have to say about this new argument.
Judge Bars Federal Death Penalty
By ROSS SNEYD
.c The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. (Sept. 24) - A federal judge declared the federal death penalty law unconstitutional Tuesday in a ruling defense lawyers said could provide a new argument for challenging capital cases across the country.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions said recent cases, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found juries and not judges must hand out death sentences, have rendered existing death-penalty law unusable.
Since the high court's ruling in June, a federal judge in New York has ruled capital punishment is in itself unconstitutional. Other federal judges, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, have upheld the Federal Death Penalty Act.
Sessions found that capital punishment would be legal if Congress repaired defects in the 1994 law.
Federal prosecutors in Vermont and elsewhere have responded to the Supreme Court ruling by taking cases back to grand juries to consider whether the defendants should get the death penalty if convicted.
Sessions ruled that the death penalty law makes no provision for such action. He also found that giving grand juries a hand in death-penalty decisions is unconstitutional because such panels do not hold to the beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard, and because they do not offer defendants the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses.
``If the death penalty is to be part of our system of justice, due process of law and the fair trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment require that standards and safeguards governing the kinds of evidence juries may consider must be rigorous, and constitutional rights and liberties scrupulously protected,'' Sessions said.
``To relax those standards invites abuse, and significantly undermines the reliability of decisions to impose the death penalty.''
The ruling came in the case of Donald Fell, 22, who is charged with kidnapping and killing a woman in a November 2000 carjacking. Prosecutors said they would appeal.
Fell's lawyer, Alexander Bunin, called the ruling a landmark that could jeopardize cases against every defendant facing the death penalty, including that of Sept. 11 conspiracy suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.
Paul Martinek, editor of Lawyers Weekly USA, said a higher court will have to agree with Sessions before that happens.
But Martinek added, ``The intellectual implications for influencing what other judges might do, potentially influencing what the Second Circuit (Court of Appeals) and maybe the Supreme Court might do, are pretty big. It's a new idea about how to challenge the federal death penalty.''
In July, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York became the first federal judge to declare the federal law unconstitutional. He cited evidence indicating that innocent people have been put to death.
The government is appealing that ruling.
The rulings by Rakoff and Sessions will not affect individual states' death penalty statutes. Thirty-eight states allow capital punishment, though some have not executed anyone for many years. The governors of Illinois and Maryland have placed moratoriums on executions in their states.
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug killer Juan Garza have been executed under the federal death penalty law.
Judge Bars Federal Death Penalty
By ROSS SNEYD
.c The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. (Sept. 24) - A federal judge declared the federal death penalty law unconstitutional Tuesday in a ruling defense lawyers said could provide a new argument for challenging capital cases across the country.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions said recent cases, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found juries and not judges must hand out death sentences, have rendered existing death-penalty law unusable.
Since the high court's ruling in June, a federal judge in New York has ruled capital punishment is in itself unconstitutional. Other federal judges, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, have upheld the Federal Death Penalty Act.
Sessions found that capital punishment would be legal if Congress repaired defects in the 1994 law.
Federal prosecutors in Vermont and elsewhere have responded to the Supreme Court ruling by taking cases back to grand juries to consider whether the defendants should get the death penalty if convicted.
Sessions ruled that the death penalty law makes no provision for such action. He also found that giving grand juries a hand in death-penalty decisions is unconstitutional because such panels do not hold to the beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard, and because they do not offer defendants the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses.
``If the death penalty is to be part of our system of justice, due process of law and the fair trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment require that standards and safeguards governing the kinds of evidence juries may consider must be rigorous, and constitutional rights and liberties scrupulously protected,'' Sessions said.
``To relax those standards invites abuse, and significantly undermines the reliability of decisions to impose the death penalty.''
The ruling came in the case of Donald Fell, 22, who is charged with kidnapping and killing a woman in a November 2000 carjacking. Prosecutors said they would appeal.
Fell's lawyer, Alexander Bunin, called the ruling a landmark that could jeopardize cases against every defendant facing the death penalty, including that of Sept. 11 conspiracy suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.
Paul Martinek, editor of Lawyers Weekly USA, said a higher court will have to agree with Sessions before that happens.
But Martinek added, ``The intellectual implications for influencing what other judges might do, potentially influencing what the Second Circuit (Court of Appeals) and maybe the Supreme Court might do, are pretty big. It's a new idea about how to challenge the federal death penalty.''
In July, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York became the first federal judge to declare the federal law unconstitutional. He cited evidence indicating that innocent people have been put to death.
The government is appealing that ruling.
The rulings by Rakoff and Sessions will not affect individual states' death penalty statutes. Thirty-eight states allow capital punishment, though some have not executed anyone for many years. The governors of Illinois and Maryland have placed moratoriums on executions in their states.
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and drug killer Juan Garza have been executed under the federal death penalty law.
