SCOTUS Passes on Constitutional Challenge to Death Penalty

[Draggingtree]

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Posted by Kemberlee Kaye Tuesday, May 31, 2016 at 5:00pm

Only two justices dissent

 

The death penalty will not get its day in court this year (at least not in the highest court in all of Americaland).

 

Only two of the court’s eight justices (Breyer and Ginsburg) showed interest in hearing the appeal of a Louisiana man convicted of killing his pregnant former girlfriend.

 

According to Reuters:

The justices, who have sharply disagreed among themselves over capital punishment, declined to consider the appeal brought by Lamondre Tucker, who was sentenced to death for the 2008 murder of 18-year-old Tavia Sills in Shreveport. Sills, nearly five months pregnant, was shot three times and her body was dumped in a pond.

 

Tucker, who is black, had argued in part that black males had an increased likelihood of being convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Louisiana’s Caddo Parish due to endemic racism.

 

At the time of Tucker’s conviction, a Confederate flag, symbol of the pro-slavery Southern states that lost the U.S. Civil War that ended in 1865, flew outside the county courthouse, his lawyers said in court filings.

 

Justice Breyer Capital Punishment Dissent

[Draggingtree]

Court reopens race and death penalty issues

By Lyle Denniston on Jun 6, 2016 at 1:41 pm

Returning to ongoing disputes over the role of race in criminal punishment and in politics, the Supreme Court on Monday added new cases for decisions at its next Term — one involving the death penalty in Texas, the other involving the drawing of new maps for election of members of Virginia’s state legislature.

 

In another Texas capital punishment case, the Court agreed to try again to sort out when an individual is too disabled intellectually to be sentenced to death. The Justices chose not to consider a second issue raised in that case: the constitutionality of prolonged stays on death row, especially on the theory that this treatment causes severe psychological harm. A month ago, over Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s dissent, the Court refused to hear that question in a California case. It appears that there are not four votes (the minimum number required) to grant review of that particular issue.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/court-reopens-race-and-death-penalty-issues/

[Draggingtree]

Supreme Court to Take Up Two Texas Death Penalty Cases

 

by Johnathan Silver / June 6, 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two Texas death penalty cases next term, both related to crimes that occurred in Houston, the high court revealed Monday.

 

Death row inmate Duane Buck was condemned for the 1997 shooting death of ex-girlfriend Debra Gardner and her friend Kenneth Butler. His guilt isn't in contention but the decision to sentence him to death is.

 

At trial, a psychologist testified that Buck was more likely to be a threat to society because he is black. Buck's advocates argue that racism played a role in his death sentence. Now the Supreme Court will tackle the case, considering whether Buck had effective assistance of counsel and the role race played in his sentencing. https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/06/scotus-takes-2-texas-death-penalty-cases/