Death penalty stuff

A year ago I counted heads in over 75 Supreme Court death penalty cases. I compiled this information into an Excel sheet to track whether and when a particular now-serving justice voted for death. If anyone wants it, email me (overpundit at yahoo dot com).

Also, I have the "final meal requests" of all inmates executed in Texas. This information was available online until the Texas DOC withdrew it as "tasteless."

Special annoucement from John Edwards today at 4

I recevied the below message in my email today:
"Senator John and Elizabeth Edwards will return home to share a special announcement with their family, friends and supporters in Raleigh, NC today. Tune in at 4:00pm EST for live cable coverage of the event."

Hmm...

BREAKING NEWS West to face criminal charges for gay marriages

New Paltz village Mayor Jason West will be charged with numerous misdemeanor counts for the gay marriages he performed Friday under a media spotlight and without standard paperwork.

Jeremy Blachman hits 100,000

Jeremy asks a favor:

"If you like something you read here, tell someone about it. If you really like it, tell two people. If you really really like it, tell that guy you know who works for that magazine, or that girl who works for that literary agency, or Jon Stewart's personal assistant."

I like it.

Doug Kmiec on Locke v. Davey...

...can be found here.

Fourth Amendment summary on exceptions to the warrant requirement.

This story (via CrimLaw) reminded me of this language:

"[T]he Court has vacillated between imposing a categorical warrant requirement and applying a general
reasonableness standard. Compare Thompson v. Louisiana, 469 U. S. 17, 20 (1984) (per curiam), with United
States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 65 (1950). The Court has most frequently held that warrantless searches are
presumptively unreasonable, see, e.g., Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967); Payton v. New York, 445
U. S. 573, 583 (1980), but has also found a plethora of exceptions to presumptive unreasonableness, see, e.g.,
Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762–763 (1969) (searches incident to arrest); United States v. Ross, 456
U. S. 798, 800 (1982) (automobile searches); United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311, 315–317 (1972) (searches of
“pervasively regulated” businesses); Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523,
534–539 (1967) (administrative searches); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 298 (1967) (exigent
circumstances); California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 386, 390–394 (1985) (mobile home searches); Illinois v. Lafayette,
462 U. S. 640, 648 (1983) (inventory searches); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266, 272 (1973)
(border searches). That is, our cases stand for the illuminating proposition that warrantless searches are per se
unreasonable, except, of course, when they are not."
Groh v. Ramirez (Thomas, J. dissenting).

Justice Thomas failed to mention the good faith exception, which in practice is yet another exception to the Fourth Amendment Warrant Clause. Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981 (1984).

In good company when making mistakes...

"Every lawyer and every judge can recite examples of documents that they wrote, checked, and doublechecked, but that still contained glaring errors."

That goodie is contained in Justice Kennedy's dissent in Groh v. Ramirez (02-811), on pp. 3-4 in the slip opinion.