Stephanie,
Here is just another example of how the feds support states' rights when it is to their advantage and deny states' rights when the states try to enact laws that aren't in line with BushCo's policies. There are plenty of examples of the feds trumping states' rights from the case of Medical Marijuana to Environmental Regulations, yet they are all in favor of states' rights when the state is trying to ban abortion or gay marriage. I don't think they should be able to have it both ways, but my opinion is apparently in the minority (or is it?). As with many issues in these times, this administration doesn't seem to consider what the people think.
Here's the Tenth Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Yet another example of how selective this administration is in its reading of the U.S. Constitution.
Here are a few relevant links:
Death Penalty Information Center
Cornell Death Penalty Project
Here is just another example of how the feds support states' rights when it is to their advantage and deny states' rights when the states try to enact laws that aren't in line with BushCo's policies. There are plenty of examples of the feds trumping states' rights from the case of Medical Marijuana to Environmental Regulations, yet they are all in favor of states' rights when the state is trying to ban abortion or gay marriage. I don't think they should be able to have it both ways, but my opinion is apparently in the minority (or is it?). As with many issues in these times, this administration doesn't seem to consider what the people think.
Here's the Tenth Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Yet another example of how selective this administration is in its reading of the U.S. Constitution.
Here are a few relevant links:
Death Penalty Information Center
Cornell Death Penalty Project
Maryland Governor Calls for Repeal of Death Penalty
Cheers - your radical militant librarian,
Faye in Tulsa, OK
Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit of Death Penalty as States Ease Off
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY and GARY FIELDS
Cheers - your radical militant librarian,
Faye in Tulsa, OK
Federal Prosecutors Widen Pursuit of Death Penalty as States Ease Off
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY and GARY FIELDS
Wall Street Journal online
February 3, 2007
At a time when many states are backing away from capital punishment, the federal government is aggressively pursuing -- and winning -- more death sentences, including in jurisdictions that traditionally oppose them.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in New York persuaded a jury to give a death sentence to Ronell Wilson, a 24-year-old man convicted of killing two undercover detectives by shooting each in the back of the head. The decision -- the first time in more than 50 years that a federal jury in New York agreed to sentence someone to death -- marked something of a milestone for the Justice Department in its continuing effort to apply the death penalty more evenly across the country.
Today, there are 47 people on federal death row -- more than double the number six years ago -- and Mr. Wilson this week became the seventh sentenced in a state without a death statute of its own since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. The ranks may grow in the months ahead, with several capital cases on tap in locales traditionally opposed to the death penalty.
The last federal execution was in 2003, when Louis Jones Jr. died by lethal injection at an Indiana facility where all federal executions now take place.
"I get the sense that it's really beginning to change a lot. There seems to be a renewed emphasis on this," said Jensen Barber, an attorney defending Larry Gooch, a man facing federal drug-related murder charges and a potential death sentence in Washington, D.C.
February 3, 2007
At a time when many states are backing away from capital punishment, the federal government is aggressively pursuing -- and winning -- more death sentences, including in jurisdictions that traditionally oppose them.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in New York persuaded a jury to give a death sentence to Ronell Wilson, a 24-year-old man convicted of killing two undercover detectives by shooting each in the back of the head. The decision -- the first time in more than 50 years that a federal jury in New York agreed to sentence someone to death -- marked something of a milestone for the Justice Department in its continuing effort to apply the death penalty more evenly across the country.
Today, there are 47 people on federal death row -- more than double the number six years ago -- and Mr. Wilson this week became the seventh sentenced in a state without a death statute of its own since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. The ranks may grow in the months ahead, with several capital cases on tap in locales traditionally opposed to the death penalty.
The last federal execution was in 2003, when Louis Jones Jr. died by lethal injection at an Indiana facility where all federal executions now take place.
"I get the sense that it's really beginning to change a lot. There seems to be a renewed emphasis on this," said Jensen Barber, an attorney defending Larry Gooch, a man facing federal drug-related murder charges and a potential death sentence in Washington, D.C.
