Sunday stories of sex and death

Pardon the sensationalized headline for this post, but today the Sunday morning papers include a number of sensational articles that follow-up developing stories about sex offender sentencing proposals and about the process for excluding mentally retarded defendants from the death penalty.

On the topic of sex offender sentencing (concerning which this post from earlier this week generated a robust blogosphere debate), there are articles today from the Washington Post and from the Boston Globe discussing new proposed sex offender legislation in Maryland and New Hampshire.  Earlier this week, similar proposals were coming from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, which prompted this harsh editorial from the Sacramento Bee.

On the topic of death sentencing procedures, this article from Virginia canvasses the issues likely to be raised on appeal by death row defendant Daryl Atkins after a jury ruled he was not mentally retarded and thus subject to execution (details here).  I expect that a leading cite in briefs filed by Atkins' lawyers will be the recent New Jersey Jiminez decision, discussed here, which concluded that prosecutors seeking the death penalty in New Jersey must prove a defendant is not mentally retarded beyond a resonable doubt.