News Update 02.18.08
North Carolina
Victor Streib, a nationally known expert in women and the death penalty, has joined the faculty of Elon University School of Law. North Carolina ranks third nationwide, behind Texas and California, in the total number of women sentenced to death since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-70s. You can read Streib’s most recent study of women on death row here.
Elsewhere
A sampling of stories missed while your humble scribe was out with the flu:
- Former Mississippi death row inmate exonerated (with another to follow?)
- Nebraska Supreme Court pulls plug on the electric chair (see also)
- In Texas, mentally retarded John Paul Penry sentenced to life after almost 30 years on death row (re: how much money was wasted trying to kill him here and here)
- United States military seeks to carry out 9/11 executions at Gitmo (see also here and here)
- Wyoming death sentence tossed after public defender fired for trying to do a good job
From NPR, the must-listen story of how a father came to seek mercy for the man who killed his daughter.
The petitioner’s merits brief has been filed in Kennedy v. Louisiana.
Posted by deathwatch 
