In November, 2003, the Illinois legislature enacted a series of death penalty reforms. One called for the creation of a state committee to study problems in the system. The committee was supposed to issue a report three months ago. It didn't. Why? Because it met for the first time this Monday.

Current Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has maintained the moratorium on the death penalty put in place by former Governor George Ryan, did not appoint his delegate to the Committee until last week. During the time that the Committee should have been constituted and preparing a report, the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty reports that flaws in the system continue:

The flaws include coerced confessions, crime-lab errors, prosecutors withholding key evidence from defense attorneys, using paid informants, seeking the death penalty for mentally ill defendants and pursuing capital punishment when guilt is not certain, the coalition said in releasing a new report.

I've often pointed out that if the radical right were less hypocritical about the "right to life", it would support ending the death penalty.

This op-ed on the death penalty has that perspective - it comes from the Monitor, which refers to itself as Uganda's "only independent voice." It's well worth the read, here are some snippets:

A new research study has found that fewer Americans support the death penalty as a result of the growing number of inncents on death row. A whopping 75% believe that an innocent person has been executed in the last five years.

The study is based on a 2003 Gallup poll which shows:

• 67 percent favor the death penalty.

• 74.6 percent believe an innocent person has been executed in the past five years.

• 36.7 percent believe the death penalty is applied unfairly.

Wonders never cease. Ken Starr is representing a death row inmate in Virginia, seeking to overturn his conviction. At no charge.

The Connecticut Legislature held hearings yesterday on abolishing the death penalty.

Murder victims' relatives, a retired prison warden and even a former death row inmate were among dozens Monday who spent hours urging a state legislative committee to scrap Connecticut's death penalty.

Almost all the 75 speakers at the judiciary committee's hearing in Hartford backed a proposal to abolish the death penalty and make life in prison without release the state's worst punishment.

Among the great quotes of the day:

A year ago former Ill. Governor George Ryan was at Sundance for the premier of the movie Deadline, about his granting of clemency to Illinois's death row inmates. The movie has a weblog, which we wrote about here.

The film's recent screening in Urbana was a sellout. Here's more. And even more from Crim Prof Blog .

Bump and Update: Condemned Connecticut prisoner Michael Ross, scheduled for execution Monday night, now seeks a competency exam . Since he had previously waived his appeals, seeking execution, his request almost certainly will be granted. Another execution avoided, for now.

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Original Post(1/30):

The planned Connecticut execution of Michael Ross is back on for Monday night, following his lawyer's announcement today he will not drop out of the case. Background here.

Update: Here's a transcript of the telephone call in which the Judge threatened to take Ross's lawyer's law license. (hat tip: Todd Bussert and Matthew Berger)

Update: The execution of Michael Ross has been postponed until Monday, while his lawyer, T. Paulding, tries to resolve new allegations of a conflict of interest. More here.

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Original Post

Michael Ross is out of appeals. The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal filed today by Ross' father. Ross is scheduled to be killed in two hours, at 2:01 am, ET.

Today, a telephone call between the federal Judge who had granted the stay and lawyers got very ugly, with the Judge threatening to take Ross' lawyer's law license.

The Supreme Court today set aside a lower court stay of execution for Michael Ross of Connecticut. This clears the way for his execution. Ross waived his appeals but Public Defenders, no longer representing him, sought a competency hearing.

Kirby's Report, a Connecticut law blog, is following the case. He says that once the Second Circuit lifts its restraining order, which could be tomorrow, the state will be free to execute Ross at any time, possibly even tomorrow evening.

The order of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the conviction of Scottish citizen and Ohio death row inmate Kenneth Richey has prompted this editorial in The Herald, a British newspaper:

We should welcome yesterday's ruling. However, in an inverted version of the Biblical parable, we should not rejoice over the one who has (probably) been saved as lament the 3500 who have not. That is the number currently on death row. Since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, nearly 1000 prisoners have been executed, including a 74-year-old so stricken by dementia that he did not know who he was, and a man with the mental age of seven. The US is up there with China, the Congo, Iran and Saudi Arabia in the global league table of executions, despite scant evidence that capital punishment is a deterrent to violent crime. Furthermore, around 3.5% of those sentenced to death in the US have subsequently been proved innocent and DNA technology is likely to increase this percentage.

As governor of Texas from 1995 to 2001, George Bush authorised a record 152 executions and granted just one of 57 appeals for clemency. In Texas, the chances are that, guilty or otherwise, Kenneth Richey would have been dead for years.

Once again, as others see us--America needs to look in the mirror.

Even though TalkLeft is not located in New York, I grew up there, and feel very strongly that the state's death penalty, recently enacted and even more recently declared unconstitutional by the courts, should not be reintroduced. TalkLeft is proud to have been invited to be a "partner" of Network for Justice, a netroots campaign to keep the death penalty out of New York.

The New York State Assembly is holding a series of public hearings to determine what the people of New York want. Read Human Rights Watch's testimony here.

You can have an impact on this debate. You can be a partner too. Just go here and sign the petition. You will get your own network page. If you're from New York, your state reps in Albany will be notified. Then spread the goodness around.

by TChris

If Connecticut puts Michael Ross to death, he will be the first person executed in New England in 45 years.

Nearly 950 people have been put to death since capital punishment was reinstated in this country in 1976, but none in states north or east of Pennsylvania.

Ross was scheduled to be executed on January 26, but a federal judge today stayed the execution. Ross has not challenged his death sentence, but lawyers for the state's Division of Public Defenders Services question whether Ross is competent to surrender his post-conviction rights. They persuaded Judge Robert Chatigny to hear evidence about Ross' mental capacity.

As the Christian Science Monitor reports, some fear that a New England execution will open the door to greater reliance on the death penalty in a part of the country that became wary of sanctioned killing after the Salem witch trials. According to death penalty defense lawyer Paula Montonye:

The execution "is a stamp of approval on killing. It creates an atmosphere of death. And life begets life; death begets death."