Interesting murder sentencing case law

Thanks to the blogsphere, I can spotlight a few interesting and noteworthy appellate rulings in murder cases:

• From CrimProf Blog comes this post discussing the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court in Hutchinson v. Missouri in which the court reverses a death sentence for Brandon Hutchinson based on ineffective assistance of counsel in the penalty phase.  But, what is getting the blogsphere’s attention in this case (see TalkLeft and Instapundit) is that Hutchinson’s co-defendant Freddy Lopez received 10 years in part of a plea deal that resulted from a $230,000 payment from a killer’s family to the victim’s family.  I hope to be able to do some commentary on this very interesting case later tonight.

• From How Appealing at this post is a report on a habeas decision from the Ninth Circuit.  Here is how Howard describes the decision in Lambert v. Blodgett:

A unanimous three-judge panel consisting of judges regarded as part of the Ninth Circuit’s conservative wing, today reversed the grant of habeas corpus that a federal district court had issued in favor of a fifteen-year-old who had pleaded guilty in state court to aggravated first-degree murder, an offense that carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.