July 3
PENNSYLVANIA:
Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association blasts death penalty report
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association blasted a recent report on the
death penalty, describing it as a long, convoluted and inconclusive bit of
advocacy driven by anti-death penalty opinion.
The district attorneys' 29-page response also charged that the Pennsylvania
Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment - comprised of
representatives from both political parties, the judiciary, prosecutors,
defense attorneys, law enforcement, victim groups and academia - was largely
made up of opponents of capital punishment.
"The report couldn't produce the system-wide indictment death penalty opponents
wanted because the facts don't match their narrative," Berks County District
Attorney John T. Adams, president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys
Association, said in a press release Monday. "Instead, we find ourselves
responding to the same-old anti-death penalty talking points."
State Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf, a Montgomery County Republican and chairman of
task force charged with studying Pennsylvania's death penalty system, has
called the association???s criticism of the advisory committee a red herring.
The association's response also took aim at the fact the report covered very
little new ground except for a Penn State study released in October.
The Penn State report found, among other things, that the victim's race was a
factor in who receives a death sentence in Pennsylvania. The association's
response highlighted certain aspects of the report's findings, including that
prosecutors were not found to have targeted black and Latino defendants in
seeking the death penalty, to describe it as vindicating prosecutors'
evenhandedness in applying capital punishment.
While short on new findings, last week's report by the Pennsylvania Task Force
and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment did offer several recommendations
that included reducing the number of aggravating circumstances that qualify for
a capital sentence, barring its imposition on the mentally ill and creating a
statewide public defender office.
Richard Long, the DAs association's executive director, said Monday that a
statewide office wasn't necessary because money used by the federal defenders
office can be reallocated for defense. He also argued that significant
protections already shield the mentally ill.
"The public," Long said, "can have confidence in the death penalty system in
Pennsylvania."
Carol Lavery and Pam Grosh - both members of the advisory committee - supported
its rejoinder, the DAs association noted Monday.
In the wake of the report's release, Greenleaf began circulating a co-sponsor
memo for legislation he intends to introduce when lawmakers return to
Harrisburg that will address jury makeup, reform Pennsylvania's clemency
requirements and create an additional safety net to correct legal errors.
(source: Reading Eagle)
FLORIDA----female faces death penalty
Florida Prosecutors Seeking Death Penalty Against Lois Riess
Prosecutors in Florida filed a notice of their intent to seek the death penalty
for Lois Riess on Monday.
In early June, Riess was indicted by a grand jury on charges of 1st-degree
murder with a firearm, grand theft of a motor vehicle, grand theft and criminal
use of personal identification information of a deceased individual, $5,000 or
more. Riess pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In court documents filed on Monday, the state outlined its reasoning for
pursuing the death penalty, writing that Riess killed Pamela Hutchinson in Fort
Myers Beach, Florida for "the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest
or effecting an escape from custody; that the capital felony was committed for
pecuniary gain; that the capital felony was a homicide and was committed in a
cold, calculated, and premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or
legal justification."
According to authorities, Riess killed her husband David in late March at their
home in Blooming Prairie, From there, law enforcement said she fled to Florida
where she befriended Hutchinson. Hutchinson's body was found on the bathroom
floor of a hotel with a towel draped over her. The medical examiner says
Hutchinson was, "shot with a small caliber round bearing similar
characteristics to a .22 caliber bullet and then draped with a towel."
Riess is also suspected of killing her husband David. According to court
documents, he was killed in the bathroom of their home in Blooming Prairie with
a .22 caliber handgun and a blanket was placed over his head. Authorities went
as far as to say the modus operandi in both cases were "strikingly similar."
Riess was arrested on April 19 in South Padre Island, Texas.
Dodge County Sheriff Scott Rose said in late June that prosecutors in Minnesota
were awaiting results of forensic evidence before charging her in Minnesota
with her husband's death.
(source: KAAL TV news)
*************************
Father who beat 5-year-old son to death faces death penalty
The mother of an Orange County 5-year-old whose father was convicted of beating
him to death told a jury Monday that she wishes she could go back in time and
delete the day he died.
The jury will ultimately decide whether Darell Avant Sr. gets the death
penalty.
Avant Sr. was convicted of murder and aggravated child abuse last week, which
elevates the case into death penalty territory.
In opening statements for Avant Sr.'s sentencing, prosecutors gave a recap of
the beating that killed Darrell Avant Jr.
They said the beating was Avant Sr.'s way of punishing the child for getting in
trouble at school.
Prosecutors said Avant Jr. abused the trust he had as the boy's father.
The young boy's kindergarten teacher, Bonnie Copeland, testified Monday, saying
there are now people at his school who fear sending children home when they get
in trouble.
She said her heart still goes out to Darrell Jr.'s grieving mother.
"I wonder what you would have grown up to be. Would you have been a musician?
You loved to whistle," she said.
The child's mother also took the witness stand and said wish she could go back
and pick him up from school herself instead of leaving him with a killer.
"He meant the world, he meant the world to me. And no words, no words can
explain how much he meant to me," said Jessica Phillips.
The defense had a neurologist on the stand, who said Avant Sr. has suffered a
series of head injuries in his life and that his cognitive abilities are not as
good as they should be.
"In a stressful situation, the difference between right and wrong gets blurred.
You're agitated, you're impulsive, you emotional regulation is impaired," said
Dr. Mark Rubino. "Your ability to say, 'Hey, I shouldn't do that,' doesn't pop
up."
One of the big claims the defense made revolves around Avant Sr.'s waiting 30
minutes after the beating to call 911. During the trial, prosecutors used Avant
Sr.'s Google searches as evidence. They said he searched, "how to tell if an
infant is dead," before calling 911.
The doctor said he truly may not have been able to recognize that his son was
dead.
Testimony will continue Tuesday.
(source: WFTV news)
MISSISSIPPI:
3 Meridian men could face the death penalty
3 Meridian men could face the possibility of a death sentence in connection to
the shooting death of a confidential informant earlier this year.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says Aubrey Maurice Jordan, 26, Monroe L. Hughes,
III a/k/a "Roe," 39, and Cortez Lakeith Byrd a/k/a Byrd, 26, are charged and
indicted with witness tampering resulting in death, drug trafficking and
conspiracy.
Anton Ford was identified in a news release by the U.S. Attorney's Office as a
confidential source for the East Mississippi Drug Task Force. Ford was shot
Mar. 10, 2018, in the back of the neck outside of JR's Lounge.
Ford had previously participated in controlled buys on multiple occasions
involving both Hughes and Byrd.
A trial has been set for Sept. 4, 2018, before U.S. District Judge Carlton W.
Reeves.
Jordan was initially charged with attempted murder in connection with the
shooting of Ford.
Ford was paralyzed but eventually died following medical complications,
according to Lauderdale Coroner Clayton Cobler.
(source: WTOK news)
LOUISIANA:
Agreement reached over motions issue in Rapides death penalty case
At a press conference on Thursday (Oct. 26, 2017), officials announced the
arrests of siblings Matthew Sonnier and Ebony Nicole Sonnier after three bodies
were found in 2 different locations in Rapides Parish Oct. 18.
The prosecution claimed that what the defense sought in Ebony Nicole Sonnier's
death penalty case is illegal, yet the defense countered that what the state
wanted may violate the Pineville woman's constitutional rights.
The 2 sides were in court on Monday for arguments on a motion filed by the
state which sought to keep the defense from filing ex parte requests for
relief, which are motions filed by one side in a dispute for its benefit only.
It also can cover hearings and court orders.
The defense had filed a memo in opposition to the motion.
The motion was filed in both Ebony Sonnier's case and that of her brother,
29-year Matthew Sonnier. Both face the death penalty after their arrests in the
October 2017 deaths of 3 Alexandria residents whose bodies were found in 2
locations about 3 hours apart.
Ebony, 32, faces 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, 1 count of 2nd-degree murder
and 2 counts of obstruction of justice. Matthew faces 3 counts of 1st-degree
murder and 2 counts of obstruction of justice.
They are being tried separately in the deaths of 33-year-old Kendrick Dwann
Horn, 28-year-old Jeremy Deon Norris and 42-year-old Latrice Renee White.
White's body was the 1st to be found on Oct. 18, lying on Melrose Street in
Pineville. She had been stabbed.
The bodies of Horn and Norris were found hours later, wrapped in a pool liner
that had been set on fire in a ditch on Old Boyce Road outside Alexandria.
Ninth Judicial District Court Judge Mary Lauve Doggett heard arguments Monday
morning from Rapides Special Assistant District Attorney Lea R. Hall Jr. and
defense attorney Dennis W. Moore.
Members of White's family sat in the 1st row of the gallery.
Hall told Doggett that the state had no objection to the content being sought
and that the prosecution "would be happy" to provide that through the discovery
process.
"They've gotta get that through discovery," he said. "That's just how it
works."
But Moore countered that some of what the defense sought is personal
information - Ebony's jail and medical records. It would violate her
constitutional rights if the state got everything that the defense gathered.
He also alleged that the state was trying to find out what strategy the defense
planned.
Both men cited several cases that have set precedent in the area, and Doggett
conceded that it was "confusing." She took a recess for research, coming back
to deliver her reasons for denying the motion.
She said there was no clear answer to the issue at this time. While she didn't
prohibit the defense from filing such motions, she cautioned that it should not
be abused.
In the end, the sides agreed that if such a motion is filed, notice will be
given to the state. Doggett can review the issue and, if there's an objection,
a contradictory hearing would be held.
Hall said he had no problem with that.
Much the same agreement was reached in Matthew Sonnier's case, which is being
handled by ad hoc Judge Harry Randow. During his May 29 hearing, his defense
attorney said she didn't foresee filing any such motions, but that it might
become necessary.
Rapides Special Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland asked for notice when
such motions are filed, and Randow deferred the motion.
Attorneys will have a telephone conference with Doggett in Ebony Sonnier's case
on July 19. There are no hearings scheduled in Matthew Sonnier's case,
according to Rapides Parish Clerk of Court records.
(source: thetowntalk.com)
ARKANSAS:
Federal Court Dismisses Judge's Lawsuit over Death Penalty Demonstration
A federal court dismissed a Pulaski County circuit judge's lawsuit against the
state's highest court.
Judge Wendell Griffen sued the Arkansas Supreme Court last year after the
justices barred him from hearing death penalty cases.
It all started on Good Friday 2017, when Griffen strapped himself to a cot in
front of the governor's mansion. Earlier that day, the judge blocked the use of
a lethal injection drug in the state's upcoming executions.
"We do not lose our humanity with the oath," Griffen said during an interview
with Fox 16 the next day, April 15. "As a matter of fact, we can only take the
oath because we are human."
Griffen, a baptist pastor, maintains he was portraying Jesus during a prayer
vigil with members of his congregation. However, he wore an anti-death penalty
pin while protesters surrounded him.
The Arkansas Supreme Court quickly barred the judge from considering any
execution-related cases. Six months later, Griffen, with the cot in tow,
announced at a press conference he would sue the justices.
"A judge has the right under the First Amendment to live out his or her faith
without the government trying to tell them how to do it," he said.
Griffen resumed his spot on the cot in April 2018 for the 1-year anniversary of
the state's 4 executions.
"We are still killing," the judge told reporters.
Now in July, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the same court where many
Arkansas death row prisoners have fought for their lives, dismissed Griffen's
lawsuit against the Supreme Court 2-1.
The panel of judges argued the order from the state's highest court did not
violate Griffen's constitutional rights. Rather, it "reflects neutral
principles applicable to all judges who exhibit potential for bias," wrote U.S.
Circuit Judge Duane Benton.
However, Griffen's fight is still not over.
"We are not done here," his attorney, Mike Laux, tweeted.
Laux said he is preparing to petition the full 8th Circuit appeals court to
review the case.
All of this is happening alongside a separate investigation by the Judicial
Discipline and Disability Commission. The panel charged Griffen with ethics
violations last month for his demonstration, which could result in his
suspension or removal from the bench.
Griffen has asked the commission to dismiss its case against him.
(source: Fox News)
******************
Arkansas judge's suit over execution demonstration dismissed
A federal court has dismissed an Arkansas judge's lawsuit challenging his
disqualification from execution-related cases over his participation in an
anti-death penalty demonstration where he laid on a cot outside the governor's
mansion.
A 3-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a lower ruling
Monday that allowed Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen's lawsuit to
proceed against the state Supreme Court's seven justices for prohibiting him
from hearing death penalty cases. The justices disqualified Griffen after he
participated in the demonstration the same day he blocked Arkansas from using a
lethal injection drug over claims the company had been misled by the state.
During the demonstration, Griffen was strapped to a cot and wearing an
anti-death penalty button.
Griffen argued the disqualification violated his constitutional rights.
(source: Associated Press)
****************
Arkansas death-row inmates want to force Nebraska to turn over records
Attorneys for a group of Arkansas death-row inmates asked a U.S. District judge
on Monday to force Nebraska to provide them information about where it got the
fentanyl it wants to use in an upcoming execution here.
They are requesting oral arguments.
8 inmates on death row in Arkansas sued that state in April 2017 after they
were scheduled to die in a 10-day period. By the end of the month, 4 of them
had been put to death.
But 3 of those inmates and two others on that state's death row still have a
pending case in federal court there challenging, among other things, Arkansas'
use of midazolam in executions.
"Execution by firing squad would be a more humane and reliable means of death
than the torturous chemical procedure defendants now use," argued their Little
Rock attorney, John Williams.
He gave several examples, including Marcel Williams' execution in 2014, where
it took 45 minutes for his Arkansas executioners to find a vein; and Joseph
Wood gasping and snorting for nearly two hours after being injected with
midazolam and hydromorphone before he finally died in 2014 in Arizona.
In court records filed last month, Williams contended a protocol that uses
diazepam and fentanyl would "significantly reduce the substantial risk of pain
and suffering inherent in the midazolam protocol."
He said Nevada and Nebraska both have obtained the drugs for use in executions.
In order to find out how Nebraska got its drugs, attorneys for the Arkansas
inmates are seeking information the Nebraska prison has about fentanyl
suppliers.
"Available information suggests that fentanyl is a more humane alternative to
Arkansas' current use of midazolam, which has been linked to several executions
in which inmates suffered prolonged, tortured deaths," their attorneys argued
in a brief filed Monday in federal court in Lincoln.
In it, they contend information Nebraska has about its source is necessary to
determine whether the drug could be made available to Arkansas for use in
executions, a required element of their claim.
At stake, they say, is the right of at least 17 men to not be subjected to
cruel and unusual punishment during their executions.
But the prison and the Nebraska attorney general's office have refused to
provide it, they say. So they are seeking an order compelling them to comply
under a subpoena issued in the Eastern District of Arkansas.
They are seeking documents or communications related in any way to Nebraska's
efforts to obtain fentanyl for executions, including information about its
current supply, when the state expects to obtain more and its source.
They also want to know what Nebraska knows about availability of fentanyl for
use in executions and suppliers.
In a brief, the Arkansas attorneys said attorneys for Nebraska said information
the state has would be irrelevant to the Arkansas lawsuit and providing it
"would disrupt the (Nebraska prisons') ability to obtain fentanyl and other
lethal injection substances from existing supplier(s)."
The AG's office also said, as it did in three other lawsuits filed in Lincoln
seeking similar information under public records laws, that the information
being sought was confidential under Nebraska laws.
Last month, a Lancaster County judge said information that didn't contain names
of execution team members was public record and should be released.
The state is appealing that decision and hasn't turned over the information.
The AG's office will have 21 days to file an answer in the federal case.
(source: tribuneledgernews.com)
USA:
Justice Kennedy: He swung left on the death penalty but declined to swing for
the fences
[Carol S. Steiker is the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law and Faculty
Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School.
Jordan M. Steiker is the Judge Robert M Parker Endowed Chair in Law and
Director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas at Austin
School of Law.]
As in many other areas of the law, Justice Anthony Kennedy often provided the
key 5th vote in death penalty cases during his 3 decades on the Supreme Court.
Swinging to the right, Kennedy was a frequent supporter of restrictions on the
availability of federal habeas review of capital cases, a skeptic of claims
challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection and a relatively reliable
vote against granting stays of execution in end-stage capital litigation.
Kennedy will likely be remembered more, however, for his swings to the left,
because he was the author of numerous opinions that broke new ground in the
court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Most importantly, he was the primary
architect of the court's proportionality doctrine that led to exemptions from
the death penalty for offenders with intellectual disability, juvenile
offenders and nonhomicide offenders. He also ultimately joined decisions
embracing a broad right of capital defendants to present and have fully
considered all relevant mitigating evidence. Finally, he was the 1st justice to
raise concerns about the extensive use of solitary confinement on death row.
Overall, he solidified the court's role in subjecting American death penalty
practices to frequent and detailed - though not particularly intrusive -
constitutional regulation. Kennedy never joined calls from members of the court
(Justices Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg) to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty as a
punishment, but his jurisprudential glosses on the court's proportionality
doctrine arguably strengthen the case for judicial abolition.
In 1989, at the end of his 1st full term on the court, Kennedy joined majority
opinions rejecting claims that offenders with intellectual disability and
juvenile offenders should be categorically exempt from capital punishment under
the Eighth Amendment. Many observers thought that these decisions represented
the end of the road for proportionality challenges to the scope of the death
penalty. But starting in 2003, the court's proportionality jurisprudence was
expanded in a series of 5 key majority opinions, all of which were joined by
Kennedy, and 3 of which he authored. The 1st, Atkins v. Virginia, authored by
Stevens, overturned 1 of the 1989 decisions and declared the death penalty
unconstitutional for offenders with intellectual disability. Stevens noted that
16 states had outlawed the execution of offenders with intellectual disability
between 1989 and 2003 and explained that the "consistency of the direction of
change" suggested an emerging consensus against the practice. Stevens also
noted in a footnote that there was "additional evidence" of "a much broader
social and professional consensus" in the views of expert organizations,
representatives of diverse religious communities, the world community and the
general public as reflected in polling data - a footnote upon which Justice
Antonin Scalia bestowed a sarcastic "Prize for the Court's Most Feeble Effort
to fabricate 'national consensus.'"
2 years later, Kennedy built on Stevens' decision in Atkins when he authored
the opinion for the court in Roper v. Simmons, overturning the second 1989
decision and declaring the death penalty unconstitutional for juvenile
offenders. The number of states rejecting the practice was identical to that in
Atkins, and Kennedy doubled down on the "world opinion" aspect of Stevens'
footnote, defending in ringing terms the relevance of international practice to
constitutional decision-making: "It does not lessen our fidelity to the
Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express
affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples simply
underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of
freedom."
In 2008, Kennedy wrote for the court in Kennedy v. Louisiana, applying the
Atkins/Simmons framework to reject the death penalty for offenders convicted of
raping children. Only a handful of states had authorized death sentences in
such cases, so the legislative nose count was quite lopsided against the
practice. However, Kennedy wrote the opinion more broadly than the case
required in 2 ways. First, he made clear that the holding was not limited to
the crime of child rape but rather extended to all crimes against individual
persons short of murder. Second, Kennedy rested the court's decision in part
upon the troubling tensions within the court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence
that had led Blackmun to call for the constitutional abolition of the death
penalty in his dissent from denial of certiorari in Callins v. Collins shortly
before his retirement. In Kennedy's view, the court's work was "not all
together satisfactory" and thus called for "confining the instances in which
capital punishment may be imposed."
The final 2 proportionality cases broke down the wall separating the Eighth
Amendment's application in capital and noncapital cases. In 2010 in Graham v.
Florida, Kennedy wrote for the court holding unconstitutional a sentence of
life without parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders convicted of nonhomicide
crimes, applying the proportionality analysis that had been developed in
Atkins, Simmons and Kennedy. 2 years later in Miller v. Alabama, Justice Elena
Kagan extended Kennedy's analysis in Graham to preclude the mandatory
imposition of an LWOP sentence on juvenile offenders convicted of homicide.
Kagan built on Kennedy's reasoning likening the sentence of juvenile LWOP to
the death penalty, because it is an unusually severe penalty and the harshest
one constitutionally available for juveniles. These juvenile LWOP cases further
entrenched and expanded the court's Eighth Amendment proportionality doctrine
and for the 1st time suggested that it had application beyond the hermetic
world of capital litigation.
In addition to crafting a substantial expansion of the court's proportionality
doctrine, Kennedy also provided a key vote to strengthen the pre-existing
requirement that defendants be permitted to introduce all relevant mitigating
evidence in capital sentencing. When Kennedy arrived in 1988, the court was
just beginning to wrestle with the tension between the 2 most conspicuous
pillars of its Eighth Amendment jurisprudence: the commitment to "guiding
discretion" in sentencing proceedings to prevent arbitrariness, and the
guarantee of "individualized sentencing" to ensure defendants could present
(and have considered) all mitigating evidence that might support a sentence
less than death. In 1989, the court held in Penry v. Lynaugh that the Texas
death penalty statute that it had provisionally approved in 1976 was inadequate
to facilitate consideration of a defendant's evidence of childhood abuse and
intellectual disability. Kennedy joined Scalia's dissent, which argued that an
expansive approach to individualized sentencing was inconsistent with the
court's commitment to narrowing discretion in capital cases. The stakes of the
case were high because Texas was emerging as the most active executing state in
the country, and the decision threatened to reverse scores of death verdicts
obtained under the challenged statute. Kennedy wrote a crucial decision a few
years later in Johnson v. Texas narrowing the Penry majority's holding. He
reasoned that states need only provide for "some" consideration of a
defendant's mitigating evidence and need not ensure that such evidence is
considered in all of its dimensions. That decision allowed Texas to continue
its leading role in executions.
In a series of subsequent decisions, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor urged a more
robust reading of the individualization requirement, arguing that capital
defendants should be afforded "full consideration" of their mitigating
evidence. It wasn't constitutional, in her view, to limit consideration of a
defendant's mitigating evidence to narrow questions concerning whether the
defendant acted "deliberately" or whether the defendant would be dangerous in
the future. Instead, states are required to provide a vehicle for jurors to
consider mitigating evidence as it relates to a defendant's reduced moral
culpability. Kennedy ultimately changed course and provided the crucial 5th
vote in 2 2007 decisions, Brewer v. Quarterman and Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman,
upholding this broader individualization right. Without Kennedy's change of
heart, the court might well have resolved the tension between guidance and
individualized sentencing by jettisoning the individualization requirement
entirely.
Although Kennedy did not join others on the court in calling for a
reconsideration of the death penalty as a punishment, he took a particular
interest in a widespread aspect of its present administration - the housing of
death-row inmates in solitary confinement. His interest in this issue was
striking because it was not based on inmates challenging such incarceration in
litigation before the court. During oral argument in 2015 in Davis v. Ayala, a
case concerning race discrimination in jury selection, Kennedy seemingly out of
the blue asked counsel about the nature of his client's death-row confinement,
including how long the inmate was allowed outside of his cell. Kennedy
ultimately provided the crucial 5th vote to overturn relief for the inmate on
the race-discrimination ground, stating that his rejection of the inmate's
claim was "unqualified." But he wrote separately in Ayala to call attention to
the fact that the inmate had spent more than 25 years in solitary confinement
on death row. He emphasized specific details of that confinement, including
that the inmate's windowless cell that was no larger than a parking spot and
that the inmate had little opportunity for interaction or conversation with
anyone. Kennedy highlighted the "human toll" of such confinement, and asserted
that despite its cruelty, the practice of solitary confinement had not been
subject to adequate public scrutiny. He closed by quoting Dostoyevsky, who
famously observed that "the degree of civilization in a society can be judged
by entering its prisons."
Kennedy's concern about the cruelty of solitary confinement provides some
support for Breyer's global attack on the death penalty, particularly Breyer's
insistence in his dissent in Glossip v. Gross that the death penalty combined
with lengthy solitary confinement amounts to double punishment that is both
excessive and cruel. Indeed, Kennedy separately queried whether lengthy
death-row confinement is consistent with "the purposes that the death penalty
is designed to serve," raising the question of his own accord during oral
argument in Hall v. Florida, another case not formally presenting the issue.
Ultimately, though, in his refusal to unsettle the death penalty status quo,
Kennedy seemed more inclined to gauge the degree of civilization in American
society by its prisons than by its execution chambers.
(source: Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker, Justice Kennedy: He swung left on
the death penalty but declined to swing for the fences, SCOTUSblog (Jul. 2,
2018, 11:27 AM),
http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/justice-kennedy-he-swung-left-on-the-death-
penalty-but-declined-to-swing-for-the-fences/)
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