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Senator To Take On Nation's Overflowing Prisons

Virginia Senator Jim Webb (D) is attracting attention -- and some praise -- for a measure he plans to introduce this spring on finding ways to reform the criminal justice system. The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog lauds Webb’s endeavor , saying that although “too few federal lawmakers are...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 01-06-2009
Pentagon Working On Plan To Close Military Prison

The Washington Post reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked his staff to create a plan to shutter the military prison at Guantanamo Bay . Gates’ press secretary Geoff Morrell told the newspaper that the Pentagon needs to have the plan ready by the time President-elect Barack Obama...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-19-2008
Ga. Lawmakers To Push For New Rule On Imposing Death Sentence

While the Death Penalty Information Center reports a significant drop in executions and death sentences nationwide, lawmakers in Georgia are working to introduce legislation to make it easier for jurors to impose capital punishment. Georgia law requires juries to be unanimous in sentencing a convict...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-17-2008
Legal Group Asks High Court To Review Prison Sentence Of Youngster

The Equal Justice Initiative is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a sentence of life imprisonment of a 13-year-old . EJI says the sentence imposed on Joe Sullivan when he was 13 is one of only two cases in the country where youngsters have been “sentenced to die in prison for an offense in...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-17-2008
Executions, Death Sentences See Major Decline In 2008

The use of executions and application of death sentences dropped to a 14-year-low in 2008 according to a report from the Death Penalty Information Center. The entire report is available here . The National Law Journal noted that half of the 37 executions in 2008 were carried out in Texas. Courts issued...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-17-2008
High Court Orders Appeals Court To Reconsider Detainees' Charges of Torture, Religious Bias

The justices also issued an order, 08-235, vacating a decision in Rasul, et al., v. Myers and remanding it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for “further consideration in light of Boumediene v. Bush ….” The high court in Boumediene found that detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-15-2008
Senate Committee Ties Top Bush Officials To Severe Treatment of Detainees

A report from the Senate Armed Services Committee maintains that top Bush administration officials are largely responsible for the severely harsh treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The New York Times says the report issued late yesterday by the committee’s leaders, Sens. Carl Levin...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-12-2008
Report Reveals Decline in Texas Death Sentences

A new report highlighted by the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog finds that the use of the death penalty is declining in Texas. The report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty states that in 2008 “eight men and one woman were newly sentenced to death ….” According to...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-09-2008
Congress To Urge NSA To Investigate Wiretapping Of Convicted Scholar

A U.S. House of Representatives oversight panel is set to urge the inspector general of the National Security Agency to launch an investigation into its domestic spying activities, The New York Times reported. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), who chairs the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, told the newspaper...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-08-2008
High Court to Consider Administration's Imprisonment of 'Enemy Combatant'

The U.S. Supreme Court said today it would review a case challenging the Bush administration’s claim of indefinitely imprisoning an al Qaeda suspect without charging him with a crime. Ali al-Marri has been held in isolation at a military brig in South Carolina since 2003, when the Bush administration...

Posted to American Constitution Society (Weblog) by Anonymous on 12-05-2008

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