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Posts by Frank Housh

Feb 22

Edwin Hart Turner and the Politics of Executing the Mentally Ill

Posted 89 days ago by Frank Housh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edwin Hart Turner as a boy

Despite the presence of a Southern District of Mississippi Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) staying his execution until February 20, 2012, Edwin Hart Turner was brought to the death chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman and executed on February 9, 2012.

The District Court issued the TRO to consider legal arguments which could allow mental health professionals to examine Turner  in order to inform the legal process of Turner’s capacity to be executed. However,  in a remarkable decision that disregarded the guiding principles of stare decisis and judicial restraint, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the TRO, thus preventing any intervention which could have saved Turner’s life. Read more

Jan 26

2 Comments

Agency Nullification at the FEC

Posted 116 days ago by Frank Housh

In a time of high scrutiny related to the voting franchise, the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), the only federal agency authorized to enforce federal campaign finance laws, is so bogged down in political infighting that its authority is at risk of self-nullification. This is of special concern in a presidential election year characterized by concerns over Super PACs, corporate influence over elections in light of Citizens United, aggressive voter identification statutes, and Congressional redistricting.

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Jan 19

The CSI Effect: Playing in a Jury Room Near You?

Posted 123 days ago by Frank Housh

Social science continues to tell us that eyewitness testimony is flawed and is responsible for a lot of innocent people in getting convicted. In light of this increasing body of evidence, criminal defense attorneys have argued that absent expert testimony or procedural safeguards, such flawed eyewitness testimony should not be considered by a jury. This issue came to a head in October 2011 when the United States Supreme Court granted cert in Perry v. New Hampshire.

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Nov 22

1 Comment

Book review: Umberto Eco’s “The Prague Cemetery” and the propaganda of hate

Posted 181 days ago by Frank Housh

In The Prague Cemetery, master storyteller Umberto Eco tells of the creation of the infamous historical document known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with remarkable historical accuracy. The world he conjures for us, filled with spies and revolutionaries, idealism and betrayal, was quite real. One of our greatest writers has waded through the sewers of history and produced a brilliant cautionary tale. Reading it would be time well spent.

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Nov 4

What are a criminal defendant’s 6th Amendment rights in a world of plea incentivizing?

Posted 199 days ago by Frank Housh

Imagine the following scenario: John Doe has been accused of narcotics sales by Assistant District Attorney Brown. Mr. Brown meets Mr. Doe’s court-appointed attorney, Jack Smith, and offers a plea bargain which would result in a maximum sentence of 2 years.

As it is his Office’s policy to incentivize pleas prior to indictment, Mr. Brown makes the plea offer available only until the matter is presented to a grand jury in two weeks. As the deadline for acceptance of the plea offer approaches, Mr. Smith is on vacation and his colleague, Ms. Jones, handles the case instead. As Mr. Smith has failed to adequately document prosecutor Brown’s plea offer, Ms. Jones tells Mr. Doe that his choices are to plead guilty as charged or go to trial. Mr. Doe pleads guilty and receives a 7 year sentence.

This unfortunate scenario and its corollary, going to trial on defense counsel’s flawed evaluation of the strength of the prosecution’s case, play out with maddening frequency in courtrooms all over the country. Their Sixth Amendment implications were argued to the United States Supreme Court on October 31, 2011 in Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye. Read more

Oct 26

4 Comments

Book Review – Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

Posted 208 days ago by Frank Housh

Despite the crisis confronting us, political discourse in the United States in the last decade has seen a reactionary pullback from science and reason, as manifested in the decline of science journalism and the prideful ignorance of scientific facts by certain elected officials. This problem is artfully described in Shawn Lawrence Otto’s recent book, Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America (Rodale Books 2011).

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Oct 19

3 Comments

Justice Scalia Is Speaking for Just About Everybody on This One

Posted 215 days ago by Frank Housh

“What,” he asked me, “do you think is the biggest problem in the federal judiciary today?” I was not ready for this question. While I was wholly prepared to expound on myriad topics related to myself — my fascinating background, my ambitious professional aspirations,my storied law review career about which the village children sang songs of praise — I had no idea “the federal judiciary” was a “thing” about which people “thought.” I mumbled something about “finite resources” while the judge avoided making eye contact with me. As it was clear I was going to jabber nervously at him until he invoked the mercy rule, he put up his hand after about forty-five seconds. “No.” he said, leaning back in his chair. “The correct answer is the federalization of street crime.”

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Oct 4

1 Comment

Perry v. New Hampshire and the Fallibility of Eyewitness Testimony

Posted 230 days ago by Frank Housh

When I wrote about this issue seven years ago, expert challenges to eyewitness testimony had just begun appearing in state appellate courts. Those cases have now reached the high courts and on August 24, 2011, the New Jersey Supreme Court handed down State v. Cecilia X. Chen, a pivotal case with national implications. Chen credited the challenges to eyewitness testimony and created a new set of procedural rules for eyewitness identifications. These include hearings even when the state did not participate in the identification.

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Sep 29

The Missouri Legislature’s Campaign Against the Missouri Constitution

Posted 235 days ago by Frank Housh

Despite the fact that documented instances of “imposter voting” are essentially non-existent, a number of  states have recently put in place schemes to disenfranchise voters who cannot produce a valid, photo identification at the polling place.  Missouri is an interesting exception to this trend, as the voter identification regime passed into law in 2006 was found to be in violation of the Missouri Constitution by the Missouri Supreme Court.  Undeterred, polling-place identification advocates in the Legislature are seeking to amend the Missouri Constitution to allow the disqualification of voters without the requisite documents.

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Sep 22

Troy Davis is dead

Posted 243 days ago by Frank Housh

Georgia authorities executed Troy Davis by lethal injection Wednesday night. He was declared dead at 11:08 EDT.

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