A professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School told the Washington Post that “Given these recurring problems with lethal injections, if I had to be executed, I would choose a firing squad.” That article and one in the ABA Journal details the problems with supply of lethal injection drugs throughout the nation.
Jeff Davis has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the State Bar of Georgia. Before that, he was the Director of the Georgia JQC, the agency that governs ethics and Georgia judges. Georgia lawyers and citizens should be proud. I don’t know much about the JQC from before Mr. Davis was its director, […]
Governor Deal has vetoed House Bill 837, legislation that would have limited disclosure about private probation companies from open records requests. The Peach Pundit provides exclusive coverage on the veto in an article describing all of yesterday’s vetoes and in a specific post addressing HB 837. Greg Bluestein has also covered the veto. Why is […]
The American Bar Association has released a formal ethics opinion regarding how far attorneys may go in monitoring social media postings of jurors. Attorneys or their representatives may monitor any activity that is publicly available, but they may not “friend” a juror in an effort to monitor their private social media postings. Nor may attorneys […]
The Economist reports that executions are on the decline and that fewer Americans support the death penalty today than they did in 1994. In fact, most death penalty sentences are handed down in narrow areas of the country: Earlier this month a vote to repeal the death penalty narrowly failed in New Hampshire, but similar […]
Governor Deal has signed into law the aptly-named “guns everywhere law” that increases the number of places in the State that guns will be allowed. Those places include churches (though the church must “opt in,” which may make for an exciting deacon/vestry meeting at a church near you), bars, schools, and even certain places within […]
The Volokh Conspiracy has post up about Strine v. Delaware Coalition for Open Government, Inc., a case the tests whether a Delaware statute that provides that judges may act as arbitrators in civil cases is constitutional under the First Amendment where the arbitration sessions are closed to the public. Professor Volokh give a little background […]
Last week, a motion for new trial made news when Hon. Christopher J. McFadden granted a new trial after finding that the verdict was “strongly against the weight of the evidence.” The State’s reaction was three-fold. First, it appealed the decision. Secondly, the State made comments in the press. Third, the State moved to recuse […]
Legislators in Virginia are contemplating changes to the law in response to MacDonald v. Moose (4th Cir. 2013), a case that struck down Virginia’s law that prohibited non-genital sex generally. Specifically, legislation has been introduced that would make it a felony for an adult to engage in non-genital sex with a minor between age 15 […]
The AJC reports that The Southern Center for Human Rights has filed suit against GPDSC, its director, the Circuit Public Defender, the District Attorney and others for the state of indigent defense in that circuit. The suit is brought on behalf of 8 indigent defendants, juvenile and adults individually and as representatives of a class […]