Congress is back in session, so we've got a busy week ahead.
Today, the ACLU, along with several other groups, is launching a weeklong campaign called "Stop Cyber Spying Week" to draw attention to the massive civil liberties problems in H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, better known as CISPA. CISPA is scheduled to be voted on by the House of Representatives next week. Tomorrow ACLU Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson will speak at a House Hill Briefing called "The False Choice: Cybersecurity vs. Civil Liberties."
This Sunday marks the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision that a defendant cannot rely upon statistical evidence of racial bias to prove his death sentence unconstitutional.
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 12:28pm
The courts of the U.S. have long held that the states may punish people with death, putting us in the minority of the world's countries and in the company of Iran, Iraq, North Korea and the Sudan. The caveat, in the U.S., is that the executions must be humane, and this has led to litigation over the manner in which states perform executions. In the last 30 years the gas chamber and the electric chair have fallen into disuse for this reason; there have also been a number of cases about the drugs used in lethal injection. Unfortunately, states' efforts to afford fairness in capital (and other) trials have far too often been lax, while their efforts to keep enough drugs on hand for executions have been anything but.
By Jesselyn McCurdy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dan Zeidman, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:47pm
In the 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a defendant’s fundamental right to any and all favorable information that might prove he or she was innocent of a crime. From that case came the “Brady Rule” –the constitutional obligation for the prosecution to disclose any material evidence favorable to the accused.
An excellent op-ed in the Times-Picayune (New Orleans) today begins, "Our justice system makes two promises to its citizens: a fundamentally fair trial and an accurate result. As Justice Cochran of Texas' highest criminal court observed, 'If either of those two promises are not met, the criminal justice system itself falls into disrepute and may eventually be disregarded.'"
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court rejectedthe state of Ohio’s appeal to continue with the execution of Charles Lorraine. The execution was put on indefinite hold by Federal District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost in July. In his ruling, Judge Frost said:
Ohio pays lip service to standards it then often ignores without valid reasons, sometimes with no physical ramifications and sometimes with what have been described as messy if not botched executions.
The only consistent aspect of Ohio’s execution protocols is that they are fraught with problems. Over the past five years, the state has had three botched executions. The first was Joseph L. Clark execution in 2006. Mr. Clark’s execution was delayed significantly because of collapsed veins. Witnesses overheard him exclaim “It don’t work” during the procedure. The next botched execution took place in 2007, when the execution team could not locate suitable veins on Christopher Newton. The execution took so long, Newton had to go for a bathroom break.
By Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 5:25pm
"If a lawyer stole $5 from a client, he would probably be prosecuted and might even go to jail — but that prosecutor stole 18 years of my life and what happened to him? Nothing."
This from John Thompson last night in New York, as he kicked off a multi-state speaking series on prosecutorial misconduct in the criminal justice system. You may remember Thompson as one of the men Harry Connick, Sr.’s Orleans Parish (Louisiana) District Attorney’s Office sent to death row by hiding evidence that would have proven his innocence. You may also remember that Thompson was released after 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row awaiting his execution, that he sued for the damage done to his life, and that a jury awarded him $14 million. And you may recall that last year the United States Supreme Court denied him that reward, refusing to find the prosecutor’s office that broke the rules to send Thompson to death row liable for monetary damages for his stolen life.
