More capital headlines

Though the invalidation of Kansas’s death penalty scheme is the biggest legal story of the week (discussed here), a number of other death penalty realities have also captured headlines.

• As detailed here by TalkLeft, this AP article discusses a federal defendant’s allegations of racial discrimination in the decision to seek the death penalty against only one black defendant in a large alien smuggling conspiracy.  As the article details, “US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore asked Assistant US Attorney Tony Roberts to provide her a letter from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft explaining his office’s refusal to ‘disclose why you sought the death penalty on this guy, the only black guy, and not on the others.'”

• As linked here by How Appealing, the California death penalty is continuing to make front-page news in the wake of the Peterson verdict. (My post here discusses the recent Peterson-driven media coverage of the death penalty.) This New York Times article and this San Francisco Chronicle article provide insights on the peculiar realities of California’s semi-embrace of capital punishment.  (The state has the largest and still growing death row with over 640 condemned persons, but has only executed 10 persons in the modern death penalty era.)