Sentencing Law and Policy

A big day and big new realities for criminal justice in Maryland

As reported in this Washington Post article, headlined "O’Malley to sign death penalty repeal and scores of other bills today," two big national criminal justice reform stories are finding expression in one day of bill signing in Maryland. Here are the basics:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley plans to sign more than 250 bills on Thursday, including legislation to repeal the death penalty, allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses and legalize medical marijuana....

The bills were among those passed in an extraordinarily busy 90-day legislative session that ended last month. A final batch of bills is scheduled to be signed May 16.

With the governor’s signature Thursday, Maryland will become the sixth state in as many years to end capital punishment. Under the legislation, which O’Malley championed, death sentences would be replaced with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Catholic Church, which advocated for repeal, is planning to celebrate the signing by lighting up the Baltimore Basilica overnight. The landmark is the first Catholic cathedral in the United States.

MDPetitions, com, a conservative group, is expected to announce soon whether it will launch a petition drive to force a statewide vote on the death penalty repeal. If the group were to collect enough signatures, the law would be put on hold pending the outcome of a November 2014 referendum.

The legislation legalizing medical marijuana limits distribution to academic medical centers, which will be required to monitor patients and publish their findings.

Legislative analysts say it is unlikely that dispensing of the drug would begin before 2016. It is also unclear how many institutions might choose to participate. Two of the state’s most prominent — the University of Maryland Medical System and Johns Hopkins University — have been reluctant to get involved.

But supporters of the measure have hailed it as a significant step toward a compassionate treatment option for people with such illnesses as cancer and multiple sclerosis. Eighteen states and the District have enacted similar laws.

Ohio completes execution of "baby raper" and killer of infant

As detailed in this local report, Ohio this morning carried out an execution this morning of a convicted murderer who made a uniquely disconcerted and unsuccessful argument for clemency in recent months.  Here are the details:

A man convicted of killing a 6-month-old as he raped her was executed today despite his arguments that he never meant to hurt her.  Steve Smith, 46, was executed by lethal injection for the September 1998 killing of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter, Autumn Carter, in Mansfield in northern Ohio.  He was pronounced dead at 10:29 a.m.

Smith had recently tried to get his sentence reduced to life in prison, arguing that he was too drunk to realize that his assault was killing Autumn and didn’t mean to hurt the baby.  The Ohio Parole Board and Gov. John Kasich unanimously turned him down, with the board calling him “the worst of the worst.”

“Smith took the life of an innocent 6-month-old infant while using the baby to sexually gratify himself,” the board said in its decision.  “It is hard to fathom a crime more repulsive or reprehensible in character.”

Among the witnesses to the execution was Smith’s 21-year-old daughter, Brittney, who said she has never believed he committed the crime.  “I know my dad’s innocent,” she said. “I do not believe he did this, and you know, he raised all my cousins, my sister before I was even born, and he never did anything (sexually).”

Brittney Smith, who was 7 when her father was arrested for Autumn’s killing, said she can’t reconcile the crime with the dad she knew, the man who taught her and her sister to fish and play card games and who would watch Disney’s The Lion King over and over with them.  She called him “a wonderful dad” and said she recently introduced him to his only grandchild, a 16-month-old girl named Alannah, whom he was allowed to hold and pose for photos with at a state prison.

Autumn’s mother and other family also had planned to witness the execution and considered it justice.  Autumn’s aunt, Kaylee Bashline, said that her family has no reason to doubt that Smith is guilty, especially with his recent admission, and that it’s not fair that he had 15 years since the crime to live, visit family and say his goodbyes. “He got all that, and what did she get?” Bashline said.  “She got to be killed and put in the ground where none of us gets to see her anymore. I don’t find it right.”

Back on the night of Sept, 29, 1998, Autumn’s mother, Kesha Frye, was awoken by Smith, her live-in boyfriend of four months.  Smith, who was extremely drunk and naked, laid a naked and lifeless Autumn on Frye’s bed, according to court records.

Frye rushed the baby and her other 2-year-old daughter to a neighbor’s house and called 911. Autumn was pronounced dead after doctors tried to revive her for more than an hour, and Smith was arrested.  The baby was covered in bruises and welts, had cuts on her forehead and had severe injuries showing she had been brutally raped, though no semen was present....

At trial, Smith didn’t testify in his own defense on the advice of his attorneys, even as prosecutors repeatedly referred to him as a “baby raper,” showed pictures of Autumn’s battered body and told jurors that her assault lasted up to a half-hour.  Expert witnesses for Smith testified that he might have accidentally suffocated the girl within three to five minutes of the assault.  The jury found Smith guilty of aggravated murder and sentenced him to die.

At an April 2 hearing in which Smith sought to have his death sentence reduced to life in prison, he admitted to the crime and said he didn’t mean to kill Autumn.  He also told the Ohio Parole Board that he was not in his right mind the night of the crime and has to live every day with what he did.  He said he was sorry and wished he could ask Autumn for forgiveness.

Smith became the 51st inmate put to death in Ohio since it resumed executions in 1999. The state has enough of its lethal injection drug, the powerful sedative pentobarbital, to execute two other inmates before the supply expires.  Eight more inmates are scheduled to die from November through mid-2015.

Interestingly, Smith's execution was only the 10th in the United States through the first third of 2013. Unless the pace of executions picks up considerable steam through the next few months, it now seems quite possible that the total number of execution in the US this calendar year may be lower than any years since the early 1990.

Given the broader death penalty trends seen throughout the last few years, it seems now quite possible that President Obama's second term could end up having many fewer total executions than during his first term and during the two terms of his two prior predecessors. (There were a modern record of well over 300 executions nationwide during Bill Clinton's second term from 1997 through 2000, and and I think the likely over/under for executions during Obama's second term might reasonably be set at around 100.)

"The Boston Bomber Should Face The Possibility Of The Death Penalty"

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new op-ed published today in Forbes and authored by (frequent SL&P blog commentor) William Otis.  Here are excerpts from this piece:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother murdered three people at the Boston Marathon, and grossly mutilated dozens more.  The brother was killed in a shootout with police.  The question is what justice Dzhokhar should face.  The answer, as the Justice Department apparently understands, is a jury empowered to consider the death penalty....

Wanting justice is not wanting vengeance.  It is for this reason that our most honored Presidents — Washington, Lincoln and FDR — not only supported but used the death penalty. President Obama supports it.  At least three-fifths of Americans likewise support it.  Liberal New York Sen. Chuck Schumer says he supports it for the Boston killer.  This is not because these people are bloodthirsty or revenge-driven.  It’s because a prison sentence, no matter what its length, hardly seems to fit some gruesome, hate-driven, calculated crimes.

But that’s not the end of it.  Contrary to a typical abolitionist claim, the death penalty is a deterrent, as the majority of scholarly studies has found.  Anecdotal evidence tells us the same thing; California Sen. Diane Feinstein once recounted the story of a robber who left his gun at home for fear that, if he used it, he could face a death sentence....

While the are some cases in which a reasonable person could think we’ve got the wrong guy, this is not one of them.  There is simply no sane account in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn’t do it.

Some have voiced racial objections to the death penalty.... But that has no bearing in this case in any event, since neither Tsarnaev nor his victims is a member of a race that has historically suffered discrimination.  The legacy of Jim Crow simply does not exist in this case.

The central reason to keep the death penalty available is graphically illustrated here.   The crime was unbelievably sinister, cruel and sadistic; the victims, including an eight year-old, numerous; the perpetrator unrepentant; and his guilt not open to question by any reasonable person.  A society without the moral confidence to use the ultimate punishment in such a case has all but announced that it has no moral confidence at all.

To say that the jury should be empowered to consider the death penalty for Tsarnaev is not necessarily to say it should be imposed.  There may be mitigating circumstances, not presently in sight, that would warrant a lesser sentence.  It is the genius of the jury system that it takes cases one at a time.  But it is for exactly that same reason that we should not take the death penalty off the table in advance, before all the facts -- possibly mitigating, and possibly even more damning -- are known.

Though not explicitly stated by Bill Otis in this Forbes commentary, I perceive an implicit suggestion here that it would only be proper in this case for a federal jury after a transparent in-court sentencing hearing, and not for a federal prosecutor via an unexplained back-room plea deal, to decide what the proper punishment for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  And via this post at Crime & Consequences, titled "No Quick and Dirty Deals," Bill Otis makes a bit more explicit why he thinks it would, at least right now, be inappropriate for prosecutors "to take capital punishment off the table in exchange for Tsarnaev's cooperation."  Bill concludes his C&C post this way: "In this high stakes showdown, give no deals to this devil and let a jury do what the Framers designed it to do."

For a host of reasons, I largely agree with Bill in this instance that the final punishment for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should ultimately be decided by a jury (or a judge). My principal reason for this view in this is because I believe all sentencing decision-making should be as deliberative, open and transparent as possible, and that final sentencing outcomes should result from adjudicative judgements made by neutral judicial-branch actors rather than via opaque bargains and unreviewable policy decisions made by executive branch officials.

While I am pleased that, in this "high-stakes" setting, Bill Otis sees the value of judicial branch actors having ultimate sentencing authority, I am disappointed and somewhat confused why he has a different view when prison sentences are at issue. Specifically, in long comment exchange to a post about reform of federal mandatory minimums, Bill expressed great concerns about letting judges select final sentencing outcomes on the record according to federal sentencing law rather than letting prosecutors make this decision behind closed doors based on their charging and bargaining instincts.  

Dare I suggest it is only because Bill Otis likes the potential outcome of judicial-branch sentencing (rather than executive branch sentencing) in the Tsarnaev case that he now is keen to assert that prosecutors should not take a particular sentencing option off the table?  (For the record, I think it is fine for Bill Otis (or anyone else) to believe/decide that he will always favor whichever sentencing decision-maker is likely to be harsher (or softer).  But I hope he (and others) recognizes that such a position --- whether driven by a desire for consistent sentencing harshness or sentencing leniency --- necessarily prioritizes a substantive commitment to certain kinds of sentencing outcomes, and suggests that certain substantive sentencing ends always justify whatever procedural means are needed to get there.

Some related recent posts:

• Horrific crime with uncertain responsibility and uncertain punishment on Patriots' Day in Boston
• Can the new media help identify the two persons the FBI are seeking in the Boston bombings?
• Spotting punishment and victims' rights issues after capture of Boston bombing suspect #2, Dzhokar Tsarnaev
• Does Boston bombing provide still more support for my federal-only death penalty perspective?
• "Balancing the State and Federal Roles in Boston Bomber Case"
• Bad news for hard-core death penalty fans: Judy Clarke joins defense team for Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Bad news for hard-core death penalty fans: Judy Clarke joins defense team for Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

As reported in this new AP piece, "Judy Clarke is joining the team representing the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings."  Here is more of the basics of federal public defender Clarke's appointment:

The appointment of Clarke, based in San Diego, Calif., was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler. Bowler denied a request from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s public defender to appoint a second death penalty lawyer.  Bowler says Tsarnaev’s lawyers could renew their motion to appoint another death penalty expert if Tsarnaev is indicted....

Clarke’s clients have included Unabomber Ted Kaczynski; Susan Smith, who drowned her two children; and most recently Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner.  All received life sentences instead of the death penalty.

Not quite coincidentally, this distinct AP piece from last week provided a little bit of a profile of Clarke and her work, and it highlighted her ability to working out plea deals with prosecutors that serve to spare her clients from facing the death penalty.  Not listed in this latest AP article is Clarke's representation of Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolf, whose crimes and motivation are arguably most comparable to what it seems we so far know about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s crimes and purported motives.  As with the federal mass murderers Kaczynski and Loughner, Clarke helped secure an LWOP plea deal with Rudolf to save his life.

I mused in this post a couple of weeks ago when Tsarnaev was first captured that "as in the case of the Unibomber and the Tucson shooter and other notorious federal mass murderers, I would not be surprised if eventually capital charges are taken off the table for a guaranteed LWOP sentence in exchange for a guilty plea."  The appointment of Clarke prompts me to now turn my musings into a prediction: I think the odds are now pretty good that, after a fair bit of (costly?) legal wranging over the next few months or years, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will plead guilty and get sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. 

Some related recent posts:

• Horrific crime with uncertain responsibility and uncertain punishment on Patriots' Day in Boston
• Can the new media help identify the two persons the FBI are seeking in the Boston bombings?
• Spotting punishment and victims' rights issues after capture of Boston bombing suspect #2, Dzhokar Tsarnaev
• Does Boston bombing provide still more support for my federal-only death penalty perspective?
• "Balancing the State and Federal Roles in Boston Bomber Case"

UPDATE:  Just moments after click "Publish" on this post, I saw this interesting new commentary by Mark Osler at MSNBC headlined "Sentence the Boston bomber to meaninglessness." The piece contends that LWOP may be the best "punishment" in this case in these interesting terms:

[W]hat someone like Tsarnaev probably fears most is meaninglessness. He is typical of terrorists, in that he is a young man of little accomplishment who chose to make his mark on the world through a terrible act.  For someone like Tsarnaev, and many others like him, the real fear is a life of being unimportant.  The evidence of that is already clear, given that he chose a path of carnage and destruction, with the high risk of death that comes with all that, rather than to continue life as a nondescript college student.

Fortunately, the alternative to execution in the federal system is precisely what Tsarnaev seems to fear: utter meaninglessness.

Technically, the sentence is called life without parole (there is no parole in the federal system for any sentence).  However, more than anything, it is a sentence to an existence without notice or meaning, to live out one’s life without the deep interactions with the world that inspire people to great and terrible acts.  It begins with being assigned a number which largely replaces one’s name, and it ends with an unnoticed death, rather than the burst of attention that accompanies an execution.

"Balancing the State and Federal Roles in Boston Bomber Case"

The title of this post is the headline of this new article via Stateline, and here are some excerpts that reinforce my sense that at least some Masschusetts officials are quite pleased the feds have taken over the initial prosecution in this case because of the availability of the death penalty:

It’s not clear that anyone in Massachusetts is objecting to a potential death sentence in the bombings that killed three and injured hundreds, and in fact, a bipartisan group of lawmakers filed a bill Tuesday to reinstate the death penalty.  “What if he were not going to be federally charged?” said Republican Rep. Shaunna O’Connell in an interview with the Boston Globe.  “In Massachusetts, there would be no death penalty for him.”

The federal interest in the case against Tsarnaev is national security and the so far, state and federal authorities are cooperating.  There’s no federalism ground for the state of Massachusetts to object to a death sentence, said Robert Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, since the federal charge carries a federal death sentence.  The final decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Currently, the state does not plan to introduce state charges against Tsarnaev, said Jake Wark, press secretary for the Suffolk County district attorney who handles all violent crime in Boston.  Wark said that in the first few hours after the explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office was responsible for the case and handled it like any triple murder investigation.  But after the call came from Washington late Monday afternoon, the district attorney’s office deferred to the United States Attorney’s Office to proceed with the terrorism investigation.

Gov. Deval Patrick has been silent on the issue since the bombings, but said in 2005, “The death penalty can never be made foolproof, it is not a deterrent, and the huge costs incurred in capital proceedings divert resources away from actually fighting and prosecuting crime.”

So far in the investigation, federal, state and local authorities have worked together nearly seamlessly.  David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, said that is the result of 10 years of relationship building between the FBI and state and local law enforcement.  In Boston, the joint terrorism task force, headed by the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI but also staffed with state and local officers, is taking the lead in the investigation.

“The FBI took some lumps in the 9/11 era for big-footing state and local law enforcement in national security and in other cases,” said Laufman, “but the FBI’s made a concerted effort to improve state and local relationships and now there are much better working relationships for the FBI to work in cases like this.”

Some related recent posts:

• Horrific crime with uncertain responsibility and uncertain punishment on Patriots' Day in Boston
• Can the new media help identify the two persons the FBI are seeking in the Boston bombings?
• Spotting punishment and victims' rights issues after capture of Boston bombing suspect #2, Dzhokar Tsarnaev
• Does Boston bombing provide still more support for my federal-only death penalty perspective?

Georgia now has permission, but not needed pentobarbital, for executing Warren Hill

The saga surrounding Georgia's efforts to carry out the punishment of death for a Warren Hill, now more than two decades after his second murder, moved forward yesterday after a big split panel ruling by the Eleventh Circuit.  This Atlanta Journal Constitution article, headlined "Court lifts execution stay; state out of lethal-injection drugs," explains the panel ruling, while also highlights why this long-running death penalty drama seems unlikely to end anytime soon:

The federal appeals court in Atlanta has denied Warren Hill’s bid to halt his execution on grounds he is mentally retarded at a time when the state finds itself out of lethal-injection drugs. 

By a 2-1 vote, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Hill’s mental retardation claims had already been considered and rejected.  The court also said that because Hill only challenged his eligibility for execution, and not his conviction of murder, it could not consider his new claims.

The court lifted its stay of execution, meaning the state can set a new execution date for Hill at anytime.  But the Georgia Department of Corrections is currently out of pentobarbital, a barbiturate used as the state’s sole lethal-injection drug.  “At this time, we are looking into the procurement of the drug,” agency spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said in an email.

Hill’s case attracted international attention this year when three state experts, who previously testified Hill was faking his mental disability, came forward and said they had been mistaken.  The doctors — two psychiatrists and a psychologist — described their evaluations of Hill more than a decade ago as rush jobs and said an improved scientific understanding of mental retardation led them to now believe Hill is mildly mentally retarded.

In 1988, Georgia became the first state to ban executions of the mentally retarded; the U.S. Supreme Court declared the practice unconstitutional nationwide in 2002.

Judge Rosemary Barkett issued a stinging dissent, saying there is now “no question” that Georgia will be executing a mentally retarded man.  She noted that all seven mental health experts — the state’s and Hill’s — who have examined Hill now unanimously agree he is mentally retarded.   “The idea that courts are not permitted to acknowledge that a mistake has been made which would bar an execution is quite incredible for a country that not only prides itself on having the quintessential system of justice but attempts to export it to the world as a model of fairness,” she wrote.

Hill’s lawyer, Brian Kammer, said he was “deeply disappointed” that the 11th Circuit “found that procedural barriers prevent them from considering the compelling new evidence.”  He said it is likely he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider Hill’s claims....

Hill was sentenced to death for killing Joseph Handspike, an inmate serving a life sentence in the same state prison where Hill was incarcerated.  In 1990, Hill bludgeoned Handspike to death with a nail-studded wooden board.  At the time, Hill was already serving a life sentence for killing his 18-year-old girlfriend, Myra Wright, by shooting her 11 times in 1986.

The full 69-page split panel ruling in In re Hill,  No. 13-10702 (11th Cir. April 22, 2012), is available at this link.

Does Boston bombing provide still more support for my federal-only death penalty perspective?

As long-time readers know, I like to describe myself a "death-penalty agnostic" concerning the theoretical and empirical arguments that traditionally surround the the criminal punishment of death.  But while I have long been uncertain about the "meta" arguments for and against capital punishment, as a matter of modern US policy and procedures I have a firm and distinctive view: given (1) persistent public/democratic support for death as a possible punishment for the "worst of the worst," and given (2) persistent evidence that states struggle in lots of ways for lots of reasons with the fair and effective administration of capital punishment, I believe that (1+2=3) as a policy and practical matter we ought to consider and embrace an exclusively federal death penalty.

Regular readers have seen and surely remember various prior post in which I have talked through this idea a bit, and I have linked some of these posts below.  But, as the title of this post is meant to highlight, I think the soundness and wisdom of my distinctive view on the best modern way to administer capital punishment in the United States is now on full display in the wake of the Boston bombings. 

Massachusetts, of course, does not have death as an available punishment.  And yet, I have already seen reports of many local and state officials (not to mention Massachusetts citizens) who now say they are open to (if not eager to) have the bombing suspect(s) prosecuted in federal court in part because federal law includes the possibility of the death penalty.  Moreover, there is every reason to view terror bombings like these, whether or not they have direct international connections and implications, as the kinds of crimes that ought to be investigated and prosecuted primarily by national authorities (assisted, of course, by state and local official and agents).

Stated in slightly different terms and with the events in Boston now making these ideas especially salient and timely, I believe that essentially by definition in our modern globally-wired and national-media-saturated American society (1) every potential "worst of the worst" murder is of national (and not just local) concern, and (2) every potential "worst of the worst" murder merits the potential involvement of federal investigators, and (3) federal authorities have constitutional and practical reasons for wanting or needing to be the primary "deciders" concerning the investigation and prosecution of every potential "worst of the worst" murder, and (4) state and local officials typically will welcome being able to "federalize" any potential "worst of the worst" murder, and thus (1+2+3+4=5) we should just make death a punishment only available at the federal level so that the feds know they can and should get involved if (and only when?) federal interests and/or the value of cooperative federalism are implicated by any potential "worst of the worst" murder.

Lots of (mostly older) related posts on the federal death penalty:

• The federalization of the death penalty
• More support for an exclusively federal death penalty
• Context-free ruminations on the federal death penalty
• Debating the death penalty as bargaining chip
• Research on capital punishment's impact on plea deals
• Another example of the death penalty as an effective plea bargaining tool
• Great new (though still dated) examination of the death penalty and plea bargaining
• A poster child for the (federal) death penalty?
• The federal law gap in the NJ death penalty report
• The federal death penalty in America's paradise
• The federal death penalty in NY and elsewhere
• Ashcroft's death penalty "legacy"
• Wondering about the state and fate of the federal death penalty
• "Cruel and Unusual Federal Punishments"
• Split Sixth Circuit reverses federal death sentence on interesting grounds
• "The Racial Geography of the Federal Death Penalty"
• Federal prosecutor in Western NY (wisely?) recommending lots of capital prosecutions
• Making the case for the use of the federal death penalty
• Notable commentary on "Christopher Dorner and the California Death Penalty"

UPDATE:  This new DOJ press release reports on the initial charges brought against the surviving Boston bomber.  Here is how the release starts:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, a U.S. citizen and resident of Cambridge, Mass., has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, resulting in the death of three people and injuries to more than 200 people.

In a criminal complaint unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Tsarnaev is specifically charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device or IED) against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death.   The statutory charges authorize a penalty, upon conviction, of death or imprisonment for life or any term of years.  Tsarnaev had his initial court appearance today from his hospital room.

Lots of death penalty headlines in wake of capture of one Boston bomber

Just as has taken place on this blog (via comments to this post), there is now lots and lots of media buzzing about seeking the death penalty for surviving boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev.  Here are some of the headlines and stories from various sources that caught my eye via Google news this morning:

• "Accused Boston Marathon bomber will likely face death penalty"

• "Tom Menino open to death penalty: Wants toughest punishment for accused terrorist"

• "Schumer says death penalty 'appropriate'"

• "Bombing Does Not Guarantee Death Penalty"

Spotting punishment and victims' rights issues after capture of Boston bombing suspect #2, Dzhokar Tsarnaev

This CNN headline gets to the heart of the most notable news after a remarkable manhunt: "'CAPTURED!!!' Boston police announce Marathon bombing suspect in custody."  Here are the basic details as of late Friday night:

The suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday night, bringing to an end a massive manhunt in the Massachusetts capital amid warnings the man was possibly armed with explosives.

Law enforcement officials told CNN that authorities have confirmed the man in custody is 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev, who escaped an overnight shootout with police that left his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- the other man wanted in the bombings -- dead.  The younger Tsarnaev was in need of undisclosed medical care, the officials said.

After announcing the arrest on Twitter, Boston police tweeted: "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."...

Tsarnaev was cornered late Friday on a boat in a backyard of Watertown, a suburb of Boston.  Authorities "engaged" the man, according to one of the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, just minutes after authorities indicated during a news conference that a manhunt for the suspect appeared to come up empty....

The development came after authorities cast a wide net for the suspect that virtually shut down Boston and its surroundings following a violent night in which authorities say the brothers allegedly hurled explosives at pursuers, after killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier and hijacking a car....

A federal official told CNN that Dzhokar Tsarnaev came to the U.S. as a tourist with his family in the early 2000s and later asked for asylum. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012.  Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not a naturalized citizen, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  He came "a few years later" and was lawfully in the United States as a green-card holder.

In a brief press conference following the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the local US Attorney, Carmen Ortiz, was asked about whether she would seek the death penalty; she effectively dodged the question for now.  I would be surprised if federal capital charges are not pursued, even if the now-deceased older brother of Dzhokar Tsarnaev is found to have been the real mastermind of the Boston bombings. That said, as in the case of the Unibomber and the Tucson shooter and other notorious federal mass murderers, I would not be surprised if eventually capital charges are taken off the table for a guaranteed LWOP sentence in exchange for a guilty plea.

Among other significant legal issues now in play now is how the federal Crime Victim Rights Act might impact the prosecution of Dzhokar Tsarnaev.  Obviously, all the persons harmed by the Boston bombings and their relatives qualify as crime victims and thus now have, under the CVRA, a "reasonable right to confer with the attorney for the Government in the case."  But, in light of the manhunt lockdown today, an argument can be made that more than one million persons in and around Boston were "directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a Federal offense" by Dzhokar Tsarnaev.  Of course, it will be entirely impractical for everyone terrorized (and thus arguably victimized) by the Boston bombings and its aftermath to invoke formal rights under the federal Crime Victim Rights Act. Still, how federal prosecutors will seek to comply with the CVRA in this case will be interesting to watch.

Related posts:

• Horrific crime with uncertain responsibility and uncertain punishment on Patriots' Day in Boston
• Can the new media help identify the two persons the FBI are seeking in the Boston bombings?

Weekend crime and punishment headlines from California

California has a large enough population to be a large nation all its own, and some crime and punishment stories that swirl around the state these days reveals just some of the ways that the Golden State is truly a unique jurisdiction.  Here are just some of the headline from the state which caught my eye this weekend:

• "California's dormant death penalty system faces another legal test"

• "Number of fugitive sex offenders spikes since California 'realignment'"

• "California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom calls for legalizing pot"

• "Gov. Jerry Brown vows fight with judges over prisons"

• "California's Prison Crisis is Now a Constitutional Crisis"

Florida (finally!!) carries out sentence for child killer who murdered during Carter Administration

As reported in this AP article, "Florida executed one of the longest-serving inmates on its death row Wednesday evening, 32 years after he kidnapped and murdered a 10-year-old girl who was riding her bike to school after a dentist put on her braces."  Here is more of the story:

Larry Eugene Mann was put to death by lethal injection for kidnapping and murdering Elisa Vera Nelson on Nov. 4, 1980.  Melissa Sellers, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Scott's office, said Mann was pronounced dead at 7:19 p.m. at the Florida State Prison in Starke.  He was 59.

The death sentence was carried out more than an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Mann's latest appeal.  The condemned man answered "Uh, no sir," when asked if he had any last words before the procedure began.  There were 28 witnesses to the execution, including media and corrections personnel, and a group of Elisa's relatives sat in the front row wearing buttons with her photo on them.

Afterward, Elisa's family was joined by a group of friends and family as her brother, Jeff Nelson, read a statement describing his sister as a "bright, funny, caring, beautiful little girl" who loved to play baseball and pretend to be a school teacher.  He said she was a Girl Scout who would take in stray pets and donated money she earned to charity.  She was a cheerleader who loved to dance and sing.

Then he described in horrifying detail how she died, saying Mann abducted her less than 100 yards from her school in Pinellas County.  He said his sister fought hard, and Mann beat her, sending blood and hair throughout his pickup truck, as well as the note his mother wrote excusing Elisa from being late to school.  He described how Mann pulled over into an abandoned orange grove, slit her throat twice, and then bludgeoned her head with a pipe with a cement base.

He paused from the written statement to add, "We just watched that same man slip into a very peaceful sleep. That's a far cry from how my sister passed."... Elisa's parents, David and Wendy Nelson, watched in silence.  Her father kept his arms cross as he stared at Mann, who kept his eyes closed except for a brief moment throughout the procedure.

Outside the prison, there were 43 people gathered in favor of the execution and, in a separate area, 38 people were protesting the death penalty.

In 1980, Mann tried killing himself immediately after the girl's slaying, slashing his wrists and telling responding police officers he had "done something stupid."  They thought he was talking about the suicide attempt until a couple of days later when Mann's wife found the bloodied note Elisa's mother wrote.

While Mann sought to die the day he killed Elisa, his lawyers had succeeded in keeping him alive for decades through scores of appeals.  His lawyers didn't contest his guilt during appeals, but rather whether he had been properly sentenced to death.

Jeff Nelson criticized the justice system for making his family wait so long. "Elisa was only in our lives for less than 3,800 days and this pedophile and his lawyers have spent nearly 12,000 days -- over three times her entire life -- making a mockery of our legal system," he said.

Of the 406 inmates on death row in Florida, only 28 had been there longer than Mann....

While Mann didn't make a last statement in the death chamber, he did ask that "last words" be handed out after the execution. He chose a Bible verse. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," Mann wrote out by hand.

Elisa's brother said the family has had to hear over the years that Mann would kneel in prayer while in prison and express remorse for his crime. "He just had his chance to say something and he didn't say anything," Nelson said. "We question whether he was really remorseful."

Though I still remain a troubled agnostic on so many aspects of the modern death penalty, here I share the view of the murder victim's brother that this case ended up "making a mockery of our legal system." If factual guilt was in doubt or if this was a complicated crime implicating competing culpability issues concerning the proper sentence, I suppose I could understand why it might take a decade or more to sort out and then carry out this killer's punishment.  But it seems guilt was never in doubt and that the details of the crime and the killer's basic culpability were relatively clear from the outset.

In other words, it appears that the chief reason why final resolution of this case took over 32 years was because the legal system was eager to have a sentencing debate churn over and over and over again.  I have long believed that there ought to be a basic rule that provides that if a death sentence cannot be reviewed and upheld through all levels of appeal within 15 years, then it ought just become an LWOP sentence in order to save everyone the time and aggravation of the continued uncertainty and legal fighting over the difference a quicker (execution) or slower (LWOP) death sentence. Indeed, I think it is interesting to speculate whether the family of the murder victims in this case would have been able to better more on with their lives if in, say, 1995 it was simply decided that Larry Eugene Mann would just serve LWOP. (It is also interesting to speculate whether Larry Eugene Mann might have died before April 2013 if he had gotten an LWOP sentence from the outset instead of a death sentence which surely led to him getting a lot more attention from lawyers and courts throughout the last three decades.)

Amnesty International reports on latest state of death penalty around the globe

As reported in this New York Times article, yesterday Amnesty International released its annual compilation of capital punishment trends.  Here are the basics:

At least four countries that had not used the death penalty in some time — India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia — resumed doing so last year, the rights organization Amnesty International says in its annual compilation of capital punishment trends.... Nonetheless, its yearly review, released early Wednesday in London, said the overall shift away from death sentences and executions continued in 2012.

“In many parts of the world, executions are becoming a thing of the past, ” Salil Shetty, secretary general of the organization, said in a statement. Amnesty said only 21 countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012, the same as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier.

It said at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide in 2012, two more than 2011, and at least 1,722 death sentences were imposed in 58 countries, compared with 1,923 imposed in 63 countries the year before....

Amnesty also pointed out that its compilation excluded what it said were the thousands of executions it believes were carried out in China, where the number of capital punishment cases is kept secret. The organization said it still believed China remained the world’s top executioner.

Besides China, the top executors in 2012, Amnesty said, were Iran with 314, Iraq with 129, Saudi Arabia with 79 and the United States with 43. The report also noted that only nine American states executed prisoners in 2012, compared with 13 the year before, and that in April, Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty.

The full AI report and additional related information can be accessed from this link.

"Retribution and Revenge in the Context of Capital Punishment"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper I just saw via SSRN. The piece is authored by Robert Schopp, and here is the abstract:

Several Supreme Court opinions that reject capital punishment specifically or retributive punishment generally as inconsistent with the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution characterize those practices as vengeance or as revenge.  These opinions apparently reflect the premise that vengeance is self-evidently evil.  Non-judicial participants in the legal, political, and public debates regarding capital punishment specifically or retributive punishment generally sometimes demonstrate a similar tendency to repudiate capital punishment or retributive punishment as revenge without further justification, suggesting that the mere characterization of behavior or of an institution as revenge is sufficient to establish that it is illegitimate.

This Article examines the relevant passages in these opinions and the central notions at issue in order to distinguish several possible interpretations of the positions asserted.  It then evaluates the broader interpretations in the context of one traditional moral theory. Finally, it clarifies the significance of this analysis for the underlying debate regarding the justification (or lack thereof) of retributive punishment generally or of capital punishment specifically.

Some notable headlines in wake of state prosecutors' decision to seek death penalty for James Holmes

I was intrigued to see this set of notable anti-death penalty headlines and commentaries in a bunch of major news sources this afternoon as a follow-up to the recent decision by Colorado state prosecutors to seek a death sentence in the Aurora mass shooting case:

From The Atlantic here, "In Aurora Shooting Case, a Public Pushback Against the Death Penalty"

From The Guardian here, "Even Aurora shooter James Holmes shouldn't get the death penalty"

From CNN here, "Why death penalty for Holmes wouldn't bring justice"

From the Daily Beast here, "Why My Mother Would Save Aurora Shooter James Holmes"

Also from the Daily Beast here, "Death Penalty Is the Wrong Punishment for James Holmes"

I think most of the authors of these pieces are committed abolitionists, so their positions on this high-profile case is not all that surprising.  But I still think it is notable and significant that so many commentators are quick to take up the challenge of seeking to explain and justify their opposition to the death penalty even in a case in which the crime is so horrific.

Recent and older related posts (with lots of comments):

• Largest mass shooting in US history surely to become a capital case
• Offense/offender distinctions in first-cut punishment reactions to Batman mass murder
• "For James Holmes, Death Penalty is Far from a Certainty"
• You be the prosecutor: will you accept Aurora theater shooter's plea offer and drop pursuit of the death penalty?
• "James Holmes' Victims Applaud Death Penalty Plan: 'I Want Him Dead'" 

A challenging clemency claim of capital "innocence" for Ohio death row defendant

This new AP story, headlined "Ohio Man Who Killed 6-Month-Old Girl Seeks Mercy," highlights the perhaps unique and uniquely difficult clemency contentions being made by a condemned killer in Ohio.  Here are the details from the start of the press story:

Condemned killer Steven Smith's argument for mercy isn't an easy one. Smith acknowledges he intended to rape his girlfriend's 6-month-old daughter but says he never intended to kill the baby.

The girl, Autumn Carter, died because Smith was too drunk to realize his assault was killing her, Smith's attorneys argued in court filings with the Ohio Parole Board, which heard the case Tuesday.  And Ohio law is clear, they say: A death sentence requires an intent to kill the victim.

"The evidence suggests that Autumn's death was a horrible accident," Smith's attorneys, Joseph Wilhelm and Tyson Fleming, said in a written argument prepared for the board. They continued: "Despite the shocking nature of this crime, Steve's death sentence should be commuted because genuine doubts exist whether he even committed a capital offense."

Smith, 46, was never charged with rape, meaning the jury's only choice was to convict or acquit him of aggravated murder, his attorneys say.   However, rape was included in the indictment against Smith as one of the factors making him eligible for the death penalty. Under Ohio law, an aggravated murder committed in the course of another crime — such as burglary, robbery, arson or the killing of a police officer or child — is an element that can make someone eligible for capital punishment.

The Richland County prosecutor said Smith continues to hide behind alcohol as an excuse and calls Smith's actions "the purposeful murder of a helpless baby girl."

Prosecutor James Mayer told the board in his written statement that the girl's injuries were consistent with a homicide that contradicts Smith's claim he didn't intend to kill her. "The horrific attack upon Autumn Carter showed much more than Smith's stated purpose," Mayer said.

Mayer said Monday he didn't know why Smith wasn't charged with rape, but he said it wasn't part of a trial strategy.

"Legal Punishment as Civil Ritual: Making Cultural Sense of Harsh Punishment"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by SpearIt available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This work examines mass incarceration through a ritual studies perspective, paying explicit attention to the religious underpinnings. Conventional analyses of criminal punishment focus on the purpose of punishment in relation to legal or moral norms, or attempt to provide a general theory of punishment.  The goals of this work are different, and instead try to understand the cultural aspects of punishment that have helped make the United States a global leader in imprisonment and execution.  It links the boom in incarceration to social ruptures of the 1950s and 1960s and posits the United States’ world leader status as having more to do with culture than crime.

This approach has been largely overlooked by legal scholars, yet ritual studies enhance understanding of law and legal institutions. A ritual perspective illuminates the religious history of criminal justice, challenges traditional dogmas that hold punishment as a rational response to crime, and explains why some people must suffer so that others may feel secure.

"James Holmes' Victims Applaud Death Penalty Plan: 'I Want Him Dead'"

The title of this post is the notable headline of this ABC News report on the (not-very-surprising) decision today by Colorado prosecutors to seek the death penalty for mass murderer James Holmes. Here are excerpts:

Friends of Aurora shooting victims applauded prosecutors' decision today to seek the death penalty for James Holmes, with one friend saying he wanted to be in the room if Holmes is executed.

"I don't know if it's painful. I want him dead. I just want to be there in the room when he dies," Bryan Beard said outside the Colorado courthouse. "He took one of my friends from this Earth. Death equals death." Beard's close friend Alex Sullivan was one of the 12 people killed in the shooting on July 20 last year. It was Sullivan's 27th birthday.

Prosecutors from the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office said at a hearing today in Aurora, Colo., that they will seek execution for Holmes if he is convicted. "For James Eagan Holmes, justice is death," District Attorney George Brauchler said in court.

A couple of victims' relatives cried. Holmes' parents were also in court. He looked at them when he came in. After the announcement, Holmes' father nodded his head and put his arm around his wife.

Brauchler said his office has reached out to 800 victims and that he had personally spoken with relatives of 60 victims who died and were injured. Brauchler said he didn't speak to anyone about the decision.

"They are trying to execute our client and we will do what we need to do to save his life," public defender Tammy Brady said in a voice shaking with anger. "We are asking the court not to rush this."

Judge Carlos Samour, the case's new judge, set the trial date for Feb. 3, 2014, but the date could change if the defense finds it is not ready early next year. "I want to be aggressive in moving this case along, and at the same time I want to make sure it's done right," Samour said.

The decision follows several days of wrangling between the defense and prosecution over Holmes' offer to plead guilty in a bid to avoid the death penalty. Despite the announcement, experts predict a long road ahead for Holmes, 25, and the case....

Family members are divided on whether Holmes should get death, according to investigative sources. Some are philosophically opposed to the death penalty, others support it and still another group wants death for Holmes, but they don't want to endure a trial.

Recent and older related posts (with lots of comments):

• Largest mass shooting in US history surely to become a capital case
• Offense/offender distinctions in first-cut punishment reactions to Batman mass murder
• "For James Holmes, Death Penalty is Far from a Certainty"
• You be the prosecutor: will you accept Aurora theater shooter's plea offer and drop pursuit of the death penalty?

Two notable (and notably distinct) new capital punishment papers

I tend not to read most of the (voluminous) academic commentary about the death penalty because they usually build to the same type of abolition-oriented conclusions.  But appearing on SSRN in the the past few weeks are these two different kinds of discussions of the death penalty:

The Case Against the Case Against the Death Penalty by Chad Flanders:

Despite the continuing belief by a majority of Americans that the death penalty is morally permissible, the death penalty has few academic defenders.  This lack of academic defenders is puzzling because of the strong philosophical justification the death penalty finds in traditional theories of punishment.  The three major theories of punishment (the deterrent, the retributive, and the rehabilitative), far from showing that the death penalty is not justified, tend to provide good reasons to favor of the death penalty.  Indeed, every attempt to show that the major theories of punishment rule out the death penalty either involves smuggling in other assumptions that are not intrinsic to the theory of punishment or puts into question that theory’s ability to serve as a theory of punishment in general.

Punishment theory provides little basis for sound arguments against the death penalty. Perhaps one could mount a better attack on the death penalty using ideas outside of punishment theory, such as “dignity,” “decency” or “civilization,” but so far, the death penalty's opponents have not met their burden of persuasion.

The Death Penalty Spectacle by Tung Yin:

The death penalty in America has long been a spectacle of sorts, but a recent case in Oregon has verged into the absurd, where the inmate and the Governor are engaged in titanic litigation...except that the inmate is suing to allow his execution to go forward, and the Governor is fighting back in the courts to uphold the reprieve that he issued (and which the inmate purported to reject).

This case is a fascinating commentary on, if nothing else, the fiscal waste of having a death penalty in a state that rarely sentences defendants to death (about one per year on average), and doesn’t execute them unless they “volunteer.” On the other hand, while abolition of the death penalty sounds pretty appealing, this inmate’s case raises a tricky question: he was already serving a life without parole sentence when he murdered another inmate. How should society punish someone like this? Another life sentence is meaningless, and even if one rejects retribution and deterrence as legitimate punishment rationales, incapacitation seems appropriate – executing him would prevent him from killing any other inmates (or guards).

There are, of course, other ways of protecting other inmates: maybe the murderous inmate could be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. The direction of European courts, which have been ahead of our abolitionist movement, as well as the experience here with Ramzi Yousef, one of the deadliest terrorists in U.S. custody, suggests, however, that such conditions may become the new Eighth Amendment battleground. But how is society to protect other inmates if it can neither execute nor place in solitary confinement someone who murders other inmates?

Two notable resentencing stories via the New York Times

Continuing its recent notable extra interest in an array of modern sentencing stories, today's New York Times has two pieces that are both must reads for all sentencing fans.  And because neither story enables simply summarization, I will just here reprint the headlines and the links:

• "Long Prison Term Is Less So Thanks to Regrets by a Judge"

• "Victim and Prosecutor Back Death Row Inmate’s Bid for Resentencing"

Ever the nerdy and obsessed sentencing law professor, I could readily imagine teaching a week of classes about either of these noteworthy cases.  But I wonder if readers think one or the other of these modern sentencing stories merits some extra blog attention.

You be the prosecutor: will you accept Aurora theater shooter's plea offer and drop pursuit of the death penalty?

Regular readers know that, often on the eve of a high-profile or unique sentencing proceeding, I urge folks to imagine being the judge and to propose a just and effective sentence for the defendant. Recently, however, I have enjoyed the debate engendered by encouraging readers to imagine being a prosecutor tasked with a tough sentencing decision, and this story from Colorado highlights that some state prosecutors are in now in the capital sentencing spotlight in a high-profile mass murder case:

The man accused of murdering 12 people during the Aurora movie theater massacre is willing to admit to the killings if doing so will save his own life.

In a surprise motion filed Wednesday, lawyers for James Holmes said he has offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life in prison with no chance of parole. The offer was first made prior to the arraignment hearing earlier this month, according to the motion. "Mr. Holmes is currently willing to resolve the case to bring the proceedings to a speedy and definite conclusion for all involved," the lawyers wrote in their motion.

The move swings the spotlight onto prosecutors, who have said they will announce during a court hearing Monday whether they will seek the death penalty. Prosecutors are talking with theater shooting victims and their families to hear their opinions on capital punishment for the case.

Holmes' attorneys wrote in their motion that prosecutors have not accepted the offer. Denver defense attorney Dan Recht said the offer narrows prosecutors' decisions to a single question: Is death the only acceptable punishment in the case? "Holmes can't offer any more than he is offering," said Recht, who has been following the case. "The choice for the prosecution could not be clearer."

All right all you would-be prosecutors out there: do you accept this plea offer from James Holmes? Should the views of theater shooting victims and their families be central to this decision or just one of a number of other factors to consider?