Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Tuesday items of interest
Today is election day and there are statewide runoffs in the Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and Treasurer.
Attorney General candidates disagree on whether there will be a change in abortion law. On APRN’s Pat Lynch Show. Dustin McDaniel says he believes, if President Bush gets another Supreme Court nomination, Roe will be overturned and back in the hands of state government. Suskie does not believe Roe will be changed.
Several weeks without significant rainfall along with high winds have forced St. Francis County Judge Carl Cisco to issue the third burn ban of the year for the county. The ban was issued Monday morning.
Prosecutors will ask for the death penalty not only for the man accused of pulling the trigger in a May road rage shooting, but also for the suspected driver. Benton County Prosecutor Robin Green said an aggravating circumstance justifies seeking the death penalty against Manuel Enrique Camacho. Police say Camacho encouraged a passenger, Serafin Sandoval-Vega, to shoot at the car in which Ray Francis was a passenger as it sat at a stoplight in Rogers. One bullet struck Ray Francis, who died from his injuries.
Opening statements in the case against Arwah Jaber are set to begin this morning in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville. Jabar is accused of trying to aid a Palestinian terrorist group.
The next execution in Arkansas, set for July 5, will likely be delayed after yesterday’s Supreme Court decision allowing inmates to appeal how lethal injection is administered. Don Davis is set to be executed for the murder of Jane Daniels of Rogers in October 1990. Davis has not filed notice of appeal on those grounds, but another death row inmate, Terrill Nooner, did so in May.
A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons tells the Forrest City Times Herald that the prison system is adequately staffed. This was in response to a story in which it was alleged that the BOP was forcing some employees to act as guards, who weren't hired as guards.
Two girls who were critically injured in a traffic accident that killed their mother and a University of Central Arkansas professor six years ago have been awarded $1.4 million by the state Claims Commission. Professor May Landreth, one of the drivers in the accident on I-430, was on a work related trip at the time. One of the girls suffered permanent brain damage.
Beff Kay Ray of Fayetteville received a settlement agreement of $39,832 from the Arkansas State Claims Commission for injuries she suffered from a dog owned and trained by the Arkansas State Police.
The Delta Regional Authority will hold a meeting June 22 to discuss establishing a four-lane highway connecting Interstate 55 in Batesville, Miss., with Interstate 40 in Brinkley. The meeting will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at the authority’s offices in downtown Clarksdale.
Cross County, Hughes, Omaha and Turrell school districts have been added to the list of fiscally distressed districts.
Booneville School board members don’t want to talk about a meeting last month where members apparently discussed individual salaries in an executive session, which is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Board member Mike Faris resigned after the Board refused to apologize for the executive session which was called after school patrons were reportedly escorted outside.
Arkansas ranks 43rd among states and the District of Columbia in the proportion of its residents who volunteer, and the rate of volunteerism in the state is on the decline, according to a national report released Monday
Lawanda Johnson of Forrest City is charged with third-degree battery after allegedly hitting another woman in the head with a baseball in an apparent incident of road rage. After Amanda Wilburn rolled up the window of her car, Johnson is alleged to have broken out the glass and continued to strike Wilburn with the bat.
Attorney General candidates disagree on whether there will be a change in abortion law. On APRN’s Pat Lynch Show. Dustin McDaniel says he believes, if President Bush gets another Supreme Court nomination, Roe will be overturned and back in the hands of state government. Suskie does not believe Roe will be changed.
Several weeks without significant rainfall along with high winds have forced St. Francis County Judge Carl Cisco to issue the third burn ban of the year for the county. The ban was issued Monday morning.
Prosecutors will ask for the death penalty not only for the man accused of pulling the trigger in a May road rage shooting, but also for the suspected driver. Benton County Prosecutor Robin Green said an aggravating circumstance justifies seeking the death penalty against Manuel Enrique Camacho. Police say Camacho encouraged a passenger, Serafin Sandoval-Vega, to shoot at the car in which Ray Francis was a passenger as it sat at a stoplight in Rogers. One bullet struck Ray Francis, who died from his injuries.
Opening statements in the case against Arwah Jaber are set to begin this morning in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville. Jabar is accused of trying to aid a Palestinian terrorist group.
The next execution in Arkansas, set for July 5, will likely be delayed after yesterday’s Supreme Court decision allowing inmates to appeal how lethal injection is administered. Don Davis is set to be executed for the murder of Jane Daniels of Rogers in October 1990. Davis has not filed notice of appeal on those grounds, but another death row inmate, Terrill Nooner, did so in May.
A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons tells the Forrest City Times Herald that the prison system is adequately staffed. This was in response to a story in which it was alleged that the BOP was forcing some employees to act as guards, who weren't hired as guards.
Two girls who were critically injured in a traffic accident that killed their mother and a University of Central Arkansas professor six years ago have been awarded $1.4 million by the state Claims Commission. Professor May Landreth, one of the drivers in the accident on I-430, was on a work related trip at the time. One of the girls suffered permanent brain damage.
Beff Kay Ray of Fayetteville received a settlement agreement of $39,832 from the Arkansas State Claims Commission for injuries she suffered from a dog owned and trained by the Arkansas State Police.
The Delta Regional Authority will hold a meeting June 22 to discuss establishing a four-lane highway connecting Interstate 55 in Batesville, Miss., with Interstate 40 in Brinkley. The meeting will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at the authority’s offices in downtown Clarksdale.
Cross County, Hughes, Omaha and Turrell school districts have been added to the list of fiscally distressed districts.
Booneville School board members don’t want to talk about a meeting last month where members apparently discussed individual salaries in an executive session, which is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Board member Mike Faris resigned after the Board refused to apologize for the executive session which was called after school patrons were reportedly escorted outside.
Arkansas ranks 43rd among states and the District of Columbia in the proportion of its residents who volunteer, and the rate of volunteerism in the state is on the decline, according to a national report released Monday
Lawanda Johnson of Forrest City is charged with third-degree battery after allegedly hitting another woman in the head with a baseball in an apparent incident of road rage. After Amanda Wilburn rolled up the window of her car, Johnson is alleged to have broken out the glass and continued to strike Wilburn with the bat.
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Radioland
Anybody catch Suskie-McDaniel on radio? Thoughts?
Posted by Max Brantley on June 12, 2006 02:52 PM | Permalink
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I understand the 5 listeners that constitute Lynch's audience were polled and McDaniels won 3 to 2 in a real squeeker that came right down to the line.
Posted by: Roy | June 13, 2006 09:02 AM
Anybody catch Suskie-McDaniel on radio? Thoughts?
Posted by Max Brantley on June 12, 2006 02:52 PM | Permalink
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I understand the 5 listeners that constitute Lynch's audience were polled and McDaniels won 3 to 2 in a real squeeker that came right down to the line.
Posted by: Roy | June 13, 2006 09:02 AM
# posted by 
: 9:31 AM
: 9:31 AM
Despite Coulter's Federalist Society Buds (Scalia,Thomas, Roberts ); A Victory For Justice:
Justices back prisoner's DNA case
Home News Tribune Online 06/13/06
By JOAN BISKUPIC
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In two important death-penalty cases yesterday, the Supreme Court opened the door to challenges of state lethal-injection methods and ruled that a prisoner offering DNA evidence of possible innocence should get a new hearing.
The latter case was the court's first ever involving DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate scores of prisoners nationwide in recent years. Although the decision was narrowly crafted, supporters of DNA testing, including the New York-based Innocence Project, took it as a signal of the justices' openness to prisoners using new scientific evidence to appeal their cases.
Both decisions were written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has become the key vote and voice of consensus in the wake of swing-vote Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. The rulings also reinforce a trend at the court of trying to ensure that states have adequate safeguards for the death penalty and that prisoners who may be innocent can make their case.
The first decision, which was unanimous, allows inmates who have exhausted their regular appeals to invoke a federal civil-rights law to challenge the drugs and procedures used for lethal injection. That execution method, used by almost all the 38 states that allow capital punishment, has been targeted in many lawsuits as "cruel and unusual punishment."
Clarence Hill, who was convicted in the shooting death of a Pensacola police officer in 1983, asserts that the three-drug cocktail Florida uses could cause needless pain. Hill and prisoners in other cases say inmates may not be properly anesthetized before the final deadly drug is given. The usual combination calls for an anesthesia (sodium thiopental), then a drug that paralyzes the inmate (pancuronium bromide), and finally one that stops the heart (potassium chloride).
The justices reversed a U.S. appeals court decision denying Hill's claim, saying it was a repetitive and improper challenge to his sentence, rather than a civil-rights challenge. The justices did not address the merits of arguments against the drug combination.
The second case, decided by a 5-3 vote, permits Paul Gregory House, who was convicted of murdering a woman in 1985, to get before a U.S. judge to assert that his trial was constitutionally flawed. Based on evidence from House that included DNA tests and new witness testimony casting suspicions on the victim's husband, the court said jurors would not have found House guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The justices reversed a ruling that had barred House from bringing a claim that his trial lawyer was ineffective, because House had exhausted his regular appeals. Kennedy said House qualified for an exception to the rule based on his possible innocence.
He said DNA tests showing that semen found on the victim was her husband's, not that of House, and other evidence raised doubts about House's guilt. But, Kennedy warned, "this is not a case of conclusive exoneration." Kennedy said House had enough evidence to surpass federal procedures intended to end inmate appeals and bring finality to death-penalty cases.
Dissenting were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They noted that a lower court judge who had reviewed all the new information found that it did not sufficiently undermine "the larger web of evidence" against House.
Justice Samuel Alito was not on the court when the dispute was argued in January, and he did not participate in the case.
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better."
- Anonymous
Justices back prisoner's DNA case
Home News Tribune Online 06/13/06
By JOAN BISKUPIC
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — In two important death-penalty cases yesterday, the Supreme Court opened the door to challenges of state lethal-injection methods and ruled that a prisoner offering DNA evidence of possible innocence should get a new hearing.
The latter case was the court's first ever involving DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate scores of prisoners nationwide in recent years. Although the decision was narrowly crafted, supporters of DNA testing, including the New York-based Innocence Project, took it as a signal of the justices' openness to prisoners using new scientific evidence to appeal their cases.
Both decisions were written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has become the key vote and voice of consensus in the wake of swing-vote Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. The rulings also reinforce a trend at the court of trying to ensure that states have adequate safeguards for the death penalty and that prisoners who may be innocent can make their case.
The first decision, which was unanimous, allows inmates who have exhausted their regular appeals to invoke a federal civil-rights law to challenge the drugs and procedures used for lethal injection. That execution method, used by almost all the 38 states that allow capital punishment, has been targeted in many lawsuits as "cruel and unusual punishment."
Clarence Hill, who was convicted in the shooting death of a Pensacola police officer in 1983, asserts that the three-drug cocktail Florida uses could cause needless pain. Hill and prisoners in other cases say inmates may not be properly anesthetized before the final deadly drug is given. The usual combination calls for an anesthesia (sodium thiopental), then a drug that paralyzes the inmate (pancuronium bromide), and finally one that stops the heart (potassium chloride).
The justices reversed a U.S. appeals court decision denying Hill's claim, saying it was a repetitive and improper challenge to his sentence, rather than a civil-rights challenge. The justices did not address the merits of arguments against the drug combination.
The second case, decided by a 5-3 vote, permits Paul Gregory House, who was convicted of murdering a woman in 1985, to get before a U.S. judge to assert that his trial was constitutionally flawed. Based on evidence from House that included DNA tests and new witness testimony casting suspicions on the victim's husband, the court said jurors would not have found House guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The justices reversed a ruling that had barred House from bringing a claim that his trial lawyer was ineffective, because House had exhausted his regular appeals. Kennedy said House qualified for an exception to the rule based on his possible innocence.
He said DNA tests showing that semen found on the victim was her husband's, not that of House, and other evidence raised doubts about House's guilt. But, Kennedy warned, "this is not a case of conclusive exoneration." Kennedy said House had enough evidence to surpass federal procedures intended to end inmate appeals and bring finality to death-penalty cases.
Dissenting were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They noted that a lower court judge who had reviewed all the new information found that it did not sufficiently undermine "the larger web of evidence" against House.
Justice Samuel Alito was not on the court when the dispute was argued in January, and he did not participate in the case.
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better."
- Anonymous
# posted by : 10:25 AM
: 10:25 AM
Roy, I would like to personally thank you for being one of those listeners, despite how much you hate the show. I appreciate and admire your loyalty.
Pat
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Pat
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