Judge of most punitive drug court resigns amid ethics charges

Posted on April 1, 2011 by SBright

Amanda Williams

Judge Amanda Williams, notorious for running the toughest, most punitive drug court in the country, resigned on December 19, 2011, ending a wide-ranging ethics investigation by the Georgia’s judicial disciplinary agency, the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

Her drug court was profiled on National Public Radio’s This American Life in a segment called “Very Tough Love,” on March 25, 2011.  Host Ira Glass reported on how people arrested for minor crimes – like a 17-year old girl who forged checks for $40 and $60 on her parents checking account – ended up in Williams’ drug court for over five years, including months or years in jail or prison.

The commission filed many ethics charges against Williams in November, accusing her of behaving in a tyrannical manner on the bench, improperly jailing people indefinitely and Continue reading →

Posted in Judges | Comments Off

Death sentences and executions continue to decline

Posted on December 17, 2011 by SBright

Seventy-eight new death sentences were imposed in 2011, a decline of about 75% since 1996, when 315 inmates were sentenced to death.  This is the lowest number of death sentences in any year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Texas, which had 48 new death sentences in 1999, had only 8 in 2011, the same number it had in 2010.  Texas carried out 13 executions in 2011, compared with 17 in 2010 and 26 in 2007.   It carried out 40 executions in 2000.

Death sentences in California, the state with the largest death row (over 700), dropped by more than half in 2011 – 10 compared with 29 in 2010.

Continue reading →

Posted in Death Penalty | Comments Off

Gov. John Kitzhaber stops all executions in Oregon: ‘I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system’

Posted on November 23, 2011 by SBright

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced on Nov. 22, 2011, that he will not allow the execution of any death row inmate while he is in office. The governor said the death penalty is morally wrong and unjustly administered.

Gov. Kitzhaber

“I am convinced we can find a better solution that keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values,” he stated in a written statement. “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer; and I will not allow further executions while I am Governor.”

Kitzhaber, who previously served two terms as governor from 1995 to 2003, allowed two executions in his first term – the 1996 execution of Douglas Franklin Wright and the 1997 execution of Harry Charles Moore.  “I have regretted those choices ever since,” the governor stated. “Both because of my own deep personal convictions about capital punishment and also because in practice, Oregon has an expensive and unworkable system that fails to meet basic standards of justice.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Death Penalty | Comments Off

Louisiana Supreme Court Declines to Remedy Endemic Racism in Caddo Parish

Posted on October 27, 2011 by 2dRptr

The Louisiana Supreme Court has refused to address endemic racism in the capital case of State of Louisiana versus Felton Dorsey, which was tried in Shreveport, Caddo Parish.  The Court denied a motion to reconsider its refusal on October 22, 2011.

Dorsey was tied in courthouse which one enters by walking past a huge Monument to the Confederacy’s Last Stand against federal intrusion, on which proudly waves a Confederate Flag.  The case was first highlighted on SecondClassJustice, here and here.  A juror in Dorsey’s case – Carl Staples – objected to such a symbol of racial tyranny and injustice being in front the courthouse.   The prosecutors moved to dismiss Mr. Staples as a juror for making that observation.  Mr. Dorsey’s white court-appointed lawyers did not object to the removal of Mr. Staples or to the flag and the monument.  The capital trial had proceeded under the flag’s ugly symbolism.  Mr. Dorsey was convicted and sentenced to death.

On appeal, Mr. Dorsey’s counsel had asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to examine the impact of endemic racism on the case in order to meet its obligation to ensure that race Continue reading →

Posted in Death Penalty, Race and the Death Penalty, Racial Discrimination | Comments Off

Morris Dees still sends out junk mail to add to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s $220 million

Posted on August 7, 2011 by SBright

The Other Side, an ecumenical religious magazine, described the work of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1989 as “the aggressive distribution of junk mail, soliciting funds for more junk mail.”   It said Dees’s operation was “the kind of organization that saps the financial strength of a caring public, turning money that could be used for good into little more than junk mail and a fat endowment for its own well-paid lawyers.”

It told its readers: “You’d have to be absolutely bonkers to give SPLC a penny.”

You’d have to be even more bonkers today.   The Center now has at least $220 million in the bank, as well as two buildings – “poverty palaces” – in Montgomery, Alabama.

Dees, a multimillionaire who had already made a fortune in junk mail before starting the Center in 1971, has continued to raise millions upon millions of dollars by sending out tons Continue reading →

Posted in General | Comments Off

Overrides of life sentences by judges gives Alabama highest per capita rate of death sentences

Posted on August 6, 2011 by SBright

The Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Alabama, issued a report in July, 2011 about the practice of Alabama judges routinely overriding jury verdicts of life imprisonment and imposing the death penalty.  Judge override is the primary reason why Alabama has the highest per capita death sentencing rate and execution rate in the country.  Alabama, a state with a population of 4.5 million, imposed more new death sentences in 2010 than Texas, which has a population of 24 million.

Alabama’s trial and appellate court judges are elected.  Judicial candidates frequently campaign on their support and enthusiasm for capital punishment.  This produces judges Continue reading →

Posted in Death Penalty, Judges | Comments Off