After an analysis of 1,000 cases, USA Today reports that the Supreme Court is granting fewer stays of execution.

The court continues to resolve disputes over when prisoners can make last-ditch appeals, and some justices have expressed concern about the adequacy of court-appointed lawyers in capital cases. But overall, the nation's court of last resort has made it clear — with unusual unanimity and little public discussion — that it wants lower courts to carry more of the burden in screening death-row appeals, and that it wants a small role in the debate over capital punishment.

"The court simply isn't looking at individual cases as much" as it did until the early 1990s, says Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "The justices want the court of last resort to be state supreme courts and the federal courts of appeals. I think the Rehnquist court ... would like to be out of the business of reviewing capital cases."

After an analysis of 1,000 cases, USA Today reports that the Supreme Court is granting fewer stays of execution.

The court continues to resolve disputes over when prisoners can make last-ditch appeals, and some justices have expressed concern about the adequacy of court-appointed lawyers in capital cases. But overall, the nation's court of last resort has made it clear — with unusual unanimity and little public discussion — that it wants lower courts to carry more of the burden in screening death-row appeals, and that it wants a small role in the debate over capital punishment.

"The court simply isn't looking at individual cases as much" as it did until the early 1990s, says Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "The justices want the court of last resort to be state supreme courts and the federal courts of appeals. I think the Rehnquist court ... would like to be out of the business of reviewing capital cases."

The American Bar Association will announce Friday that it is launching a drive to reform death penalty representation in states across America that authorize the punishment:

The American Bar Association is launching a nationwide campaign to reform defense systems in states that employ the death penalty.

"Time and time again we learn of cases where, due to inadequacies in defense, people are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death," ABA President Dennis Archer said in a statement Thursday. "This is unacceptable in our society, and the American Bar Association aims to do something about it."

Archer planned to make his official announcement Friday at the Hofstra University School of Law, which will be holding a daylong conference on capital defense issues.

The American Bar Association will announce Friday that it is launching a drive to reform death penalty representation in states across America that authorize the punishment:

The American Bar Association is launching a nationwide campaign to reform defense systems in states that employ the death penalty.

"Time and time again we learn of cases where, due to inadequacies in defense, people are wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death," ABA President Dennis Archer said in a statement Thursday. "This is unacceptable in our society, and the American Bar Association aims to do something about it."

Archer planned to make his official announcement Friday at the Hofstra University School of Law, which will be holding a daylong conference on capital defense issues.

Apropos of the sniper case trial, ABC News has an interesting article on Virginia's history of imposing the death penalty.

Virginia follows Texas with the most executions in the U.S. It authorizes the death penalty for those 16 years of age and older. Death can be by electrocution or lethal injection.

The first execution in Virginia was in 1608 at the Jamestown colony, the first exercise of the death penalty in the young colonies. Four years later, Virginia's governor, Sir Thomas Dale, enacted the "Divine, Moral and Martial Laws," where the death penalty could be used to punish such offenses as stealing grapes, killing chickens and trading with Indians.

The Austin-Statesman today calls upon Texas to bring lethal executions of humans up to animal standards.

A drug that veterinarians find too painful to use in euthanizing pets is being used to execute people on Texas' death row. Texas should cease using this chemical -- pancuronium bromide -- which now is thought to mask the suffering it unleashes.

Read more on the issue here.

What happens when a defendant, previously ruled incompetent to stand trial for murder, is suddenly declared to be competent--20 years later? He goes to trial. In a capital case. Representing himself.

This is the story of Richard Taylor, who stands trial this week for murdering a prison guard in 1981. Taylor had been declared incompetent and has been medicated ever since. Now the Judge says he can go to trial.

Taylor is acting as his own attorney. He has a plan for his trial. He will do nothing and say nothing.

This is how the 43-year-old inmate plans to serve as his own attorney in a Williamson County capital murder trial. It will be a reprise of a 1984 proceeding that saw Taylor convicted and sentenced to death, a case that in the intervening two decades has produced a post-conviction review of the defendant's complex and lengthy mental-health history, revelations of inmate torture in a Tennessee prison, an overturning of his death sentence, the setting aside of the conviction and an appellate court review.

Were Taylor ever deemed competent in the future, the courts determined, he could stand trial again. Now, in the opinion of Williamson County Chancery Court Judge Russell Heldman, that day has come. Jury selection is slated to begin Tuesday.

We've been reporting for some time (here and here ) on the mounting criticism of pancuronium bromide (also known as pavulon), one of three drugs used to execute prisoners in the U.S. Now you can read about it Tuesday in the New York Times:

...a growing number of legal and medical experts are warning that the apparent tranquillity of a lethal injection may be deceptive. They say the standard method of executing people in most states could lead to paralysis that masks intense distress, leaving a wide-awake inmate unable to speak or cry out as he slowly suffocates.

Pancuronium bromide paralyzes the skeletal muscles but does not affect the brain or nerves. A person injected with it remains conscious but cannot move or speak.

The drug has been banned in Tennessee--for use by vetinarians performing euthanasia on animals. Yet Tennesse and 30 other states use it to kill inmates.

Bump and Update: Eddie Hartman is scheduled to be executed Friday in North Carolina. Media critic and commentator Doug Ireland writes about the case today for TomPaine.com. Take action through Amnesty International and protest the execuution of Eddie Hartman.

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(Original Post: 9/30/03 10 am)

The Charlotte Observer today calls for a stay of execution for convicted killer Eddie Hartman.

Here's this week's flawed capital punishment case: Eddie Hartman, sexually abused so severely as a boy that the prosecutor in his murder trial, hoping to combat any sympathy the jury might have for him, made sure his jury knew he was a homosexual before they sentenced him to death.

And to fully qualify the Eddie Hartman case as one of a long string of deeply flawed cases, the trial transcript shows that the defendant got an incompetent defense from his lawyers. Among other things, during the guilt phase of his trial his attorneys failed to introduce evidence of Eddie Hartman's substance abuse problems, a head injury or mental health difficulties.

How ironic:

DUBAI: Iran will soon enact a law banning death penalty for offenders under 18 years of age.

Iran's judiciary has drafted a bill to be presented to parliament shortly raising the minimum age for death sentences to 18 from 15 and also excluding under-18s from receiving life terms or lashing as punishment, media in Iran quoted Alireza Jamshidi, Secretary of the Supreme Council for Judicial Development, as saying.

As Curtiss Leung, our reader who sent in the article, writes:

I understand that Supreme Court's latest word on juvenile execution was a 1989 decision written by Justice Scalia that affirmed 16 and 17 year olds could be sentenced to death. How ironic that an Islamic theocracy should be more humane than the United States.

In an unprecedented power play, Attorney General John Ashcroft has moved a death penalty trial from one federal district to another. Defense attorneys say he moved the case to get a Judge more sympatico with the Government's position.

For the second time in one week, Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, writes about the Death Penalty on his MSNBC weblog. We're thrilled that Glenn is giving the issue so much attention. His column today includes a long letter from us, in response to his review of Scott Turow's new book, Ultimate Punishment, in his Sept. 25 column.

Of course, we don't have the same views as Glenn on all aspects of the death penalty. For example, while he doesn't say so, we suspect Glenn supports the death penalty in theory, provided it could be fairly adminstered--while we oppose it in all cases. But we welcome his concern for the wrongfully convicted in prisons (See the 9/25 column) and for his take today on who should be locked up and who not--and why the system isn't working the way it should. Glenn says:

My own sense is that we lock up too many people, and that we lock up some of them for too long, and some of them for not long enough. That’s partly because the system is so overburdened that there are too many plea bargains, and too many cases in which charges are brought for leverage. I’d like to see the criminal justice system focus on serious crimes — violent crimes, robbery, etc. — and spend far less on victimless crimes, simple drug possession, etc. Then it would have the resources to do a good job on the cases that are really important, and we could keep violent criminals in jail for a long time.

Glenn also says people don't trust the criminal justice system. They have a hard time believing that "life without parole" really means the inmate can't be released before his death. He's probably right that those opposed to the death penalty have to work harder to make people understand this.

But we still give a lot of blame to the politicans. As we wrote Glenn,