Recent Law and Order Headlines

1. Supreme Court hears arguments: does Arizona's restrictive insanity defense violate due process?

Supreme Court to Review Insanity Defense

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 20, 2006; A06

The Supreme Court embarked on a potentially far-reaching review of the insanity defense yesterday, as the justices heard oral arguments in the case of an Arizona man, Eric Michael Clark, who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time he shot a police officer to death.

At issue in the case is whether Arizona's version of the insanity defense, which requires defendants to prove with "clear and convincing" evidence that they were too mentally ill to understand that their conduct was wrong, is so narrow that it violates the constitutional right to due process of law.

the case is further discussed at SCOTUSblog, before it was argued, and after

2. Recalling Crime Control Model and Due Process Model:

Wrongful Conviction Prompts Detroit Police to Videotape Certain Interrogations
By JEREMY W. PETERS (NYT) 966 words
Published: April 11, 2006

DETROIT, April 10 - The Detroit Police Department, whose image has been marred for years by complaints of wrongful detentions, the excessive use of force to obtain confessions and other civil rights abuses, has agreed to videotape interrogations of all suspects in crimes that carry a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Detroit's police chief, Ella Bully-Cummings, said she viewed the new policy as a way to reform her department, which is operating under two consent decrees with the Department of Justice.

The videotaping, part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by the family of a mentally ill man who spent 17 years in prison after confessing to a rape and murder that he did not commit, is expected to be in place within six months.

Many readers will find it interesting a person will confess to crimes they do not commit. Its not at all rare. And the story in this case is typical: a low functioning "suspect."

In early 1984, Mr. Lloyd, a patient at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute who suffered from delusions that he had a special ability to solve crimes, sent a letter to the police saying he wanted to help in the investigation of the killing of Michelle Jackson, 16, the latest victim in a rash of several dozen rapes and murders. It was similar to other letters he had written, falsely claiming he knew things that would allow the police to solve heinous and well-publicized cases.

But this time, the police said, the letter mentioned details of Ms. Jackson's murder that had not been made public, and Mr. Lloyd quickly shot to the top of the list of suspects.

Mr. Lloyd's lawyers have said the police interrogated him at the hospital, fed him details of the crime and convinced him that confessing would help them find the real killer. At his sentencing, Judge Leonard Townsend of the Circuit Court in Wayne County said he regretted that Michigan had abolished the death penalty. ...

3. Lethal Injections:

Citing Risk of Missteps, Judges Set Hurdles for Lethal Injection
By ADAM LIPTAK (NYT) 1281 words
Published: April 12, 2006

Judges in several states have started to put up potentially insurmountable roadblocks to the use of lethal injections to execute condemned inmates.

Their decisions are based on new evidence suggesting that prisoners have endured agonizing executions. In response, judges are insisting that doctors take an active role in supervising executions, even though the American Medical Association's code of ethics prohibits that.

4. SCOTUSblog has a posting on Tuesday's oral argument involving the 6th amendment right to counsel -- does that include the right to have the counsel of your choosing?

As per Law.com:

In the case before the Court, a Missouri federal trial judge barred the first-choice California lawyer of drug-conspiracy defendant Cuauhtomec Gonzalez-Lopez, leaving him with a St. Louis lawyer who had never argued a criminal case, and lost. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out Gonzalez-Lopez's conviction, ruling that the judge's improper exclusion of the first lawyer amounted to a structural defect that warranted automatic reversal of the conviction.

Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that reversal should not be so automatic, urging that some kind of inquiry be required to determine if the rejection of a first-choice lawyer prejudices the outcome of a case, especially when the replacement lawyer is competent.