Things I learned on my recent trip to North Dakota.

I was in Bismarck, North Dakota, for a couple of days this week. Bismarck, as Reader(s)™ may know, is the capitol of North Dakota. One thinks of North Dakota as being flat and treeless, but Bismarck has more hills than Minneapolis and a lot of trees. Here is a picture I took from a hill on the eastern edge of town.

More on executions

Last week, I posted about an execution in Arizona where the condemned prisoner took almost two hours to die. Part of the post, and the comments, questioned whether the drugs used in the execution where the proper ones. Whatever the problems with Arizona's execution methods, Missouri does not seem to have similar issues.

What is the proper method of execution?

Michael Kiefer of the Arizona Republic has a story about witnessing the execution of Joseph Wood on Thursday afternoon. I recommend you read it.

Mr. Wood was supposed to be executed by lethal injection. When most people hear that term, I think they imagine the condemned receiving an injection, quickly passing out and dying. According to Mr. Kiefer, that is not what happened to Mr. Wood.

Is Oklahoma ok?

Two recent news items caught my interest this morning. The first is Slate's story about a study by the National Academy of Sciences that 1 in 25 criminal defendants sentenced to death in the United States are actually innocent. The other is this story about a botched execution in Oklahoma. As a result of the botched execution, Clayton Lockett "convulsed several times," spoke three times after prison officials tried to declare that Mr. Lockett was unconscious and according to USA Today eventually died of a heart attack 40 minutes after the execution began.

What does it feel like?

NBC News has a story on Herman Wallace's release from prison yesterday. Mr. Wallace's story is notable because he spent 41 years in solitary confinement in the Louisiana State Penitentiary.  Mr. Wallace was released because women were excluded from the grand jury that indicted Mr. Wallace more than 40 years ago. It is not clear to me how the issue of the exclusion of women from the grand jury did not come up before now. But this post is not about that possible oversight.

Mr. Wallace has terminal liver cancer. Prison doctors stopped treating his illness on August 31, 2013, and told Mr. Wallace he has two months to live. Presumably that figure is now down to one month. I can't imagine what it is like to be free from prison after 41 years, let alone being free from solitary confinement after that long. But imagine trying to adjust to being around people, being free, and the idea of dying within a couple of weeks all at the same time. Calling the feelings involved in such an adjustment overwhelming is probably a disservice to the situation.

UPDATE:  Nola.com reports that Mr. Wallace has died.

Does judge-shopping exist in criminal law cases?

If you read his online biography, you will learn that Wisconsin Representative James Sensenbrenner likes to watch the Green Bay Packers in his free time. If you read the biography closely you might realize that Representative Sensenbrenner has been in elected office pretty much from the moment he graduated law school. Representative Sensenbrenner graduated law school in 1968 and was promptly elected to the Wisconsin Legislature. After serving there for 10 years, he was elected to the United States Congress and has been there ever since. It does not appear that Representative Sensenbrenner has ever practiced law or  had a full time job that wasn't a political office.

Does prison make it impossible for a criminal to be rehabilitated?

AmLaw Daily has the story of how Scott Saks, a partner in the corporate department of the Paul Hastings law firm, opposes the parole of Terry Losicco.  Mr. Saks lives in the house where Mr. Losicco brutally murdered a woman in 1980.  Mr. Losicco was 16 at the time.  Mr. Saks did not know of the murder when he bought the house from a subsequent owner but says he still would have bought the house if had known.  This post is not about the coincidence that Mr. Saks bought a house where a murder took place.  It is about Mr. Saks's reason for opposing parole.

It was 150 years ago today. . .

that the largest mass-execution (or just plain execution, I assume) in United States history took place.  38 men were hanged in downtown Mankato, Minnesota of all places.  It was a mass hanging, so all 38 men were placed on a giant scaffold and hung at the same time.  Some reports say that the men held hands before the gallows dropped.

Posner on punishment

Mr. Torvik may have a different memory but I am pretty sure that the very first Torts class we had went like this.  We were assigned to read the Case of the Thorns (or Hulle v. Orynge 1466. Y.B.M. 6 Edw. IV, folio 7, placitum 18 for citation freaks). After taking roll,  our professor asked us to identify the "procedural posture of the issue for decision."  He simply went around the room asking that over and over.  It was like the Paper Chase.   People were eventually reduced to blurting out random words and someone, probably Mr. Torvik, finally said a demurrer.  Sometimes, maybe often, the procedural posture is not the most interesting thing about a decision. 

10 years for stealing cell phone pictures.

Yesterday we established that it was a bad idea to take, store, and show people nude pictures on one's cell phone.  At least I think we established that.  What about stealing nude pictures off someone else's cell phone?  That is also a bad idea.

Kill someone and get sentenced to 10 years of church attendance?

To complete my religion trilogy, the Washington Post has an article about an Oklahoma judge who sentenced a 17-year-old boy to, among other things, attending church for ten years.  The other requirements of the sentence are attending welding school and completing high school.  No word on which part of the sentence the youngster regards as the most onerous.

He fled on a what?

When I spent a summer as an extern for one of the greatest judges of all time, I got to see a few bank robbers get sentenced.  I came away with the conclusion that trying to rob a bank is one of the stupidest things one could do.

Another bad decision and another criminal sentence

I did a post recently about how a bad decision by a Wisconsin man resulted in him going to prison for 23 years.   With that in mind, consider the sentence given to Linda Hamm.

One bad decision leads to 23 years in prison.

The Journal-Times in Racine, Wisconsin has a story that shows how one instant can change everything.

Albert Paragamian was an 88-year-old World War II combat veteran who was pulling out of a parking stall of Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints hospital on his way to meet his wife of 47 years as she was transferred from the hospital to a nursing home.  Richard Lewis was a 23-year-old man, on probation and driving without a driver's license, when Mr. Paragamian's car bumped the car Mr. Lewis was in.  Neither car was damaged.

Priests talking about non-violent murderers, seductive children, and gay marriage.

Sports Illustrated reports that George Huguely, the former University of Virginia lacrosse player convicted of murdering Yeardley Love, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for the crime.  This Washington Post report says that Virginia law requires Mr. Huguely to serve at least 85% of his sentence which would be roughly 19 years and six months.  Mr. Huguely has already been in jail for about a year so he has around 18 years remaining on his sentence.  Both reports say that Judge Edward Hogshire deviated from standard practice by sentencing Mr. Huguely to less than the 26 years recommended by the jury that convicted Mr. Huguely.  It is not clear why Judge Hogshire went with a lower sentence.

An answer to a question no one asked.

In case you were wondering how much jail time you might do if you bite off a person's ear, it looks like the answer is six months in jail and five months of probation.  At least, that is what the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports happened to one woman who took things "way too far" at a New Year's Day party.