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To: agrace
My guess is that the federal government, having its own laws on capital punishment, reviews the case because of the supremacy clause.
89 posted on 03/23/2005 10:27:45 AM PST by MatrixMetaphore
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To: MatrixMetaphore
My guess is that the federal government, having its own laws on capital punishment, reviews the case because of the supremacy clause.

Reviews which case, you mean the juvenile death row issue? I thought of another example, if you'll indulge one more question. What was the federal jurisdiction of the justice dept when it decided to prosecute the Rodney King cops for violating his civil rights?

I found this regarding that case -

In some instances, however, it is because of another factor - such as apparent racial bias. For instance, the verdict in the first, State trial of the police officers charged with beating Rodney King is thought by many to have been based not on the evidence, but on bias. And in such cases, a second, federal trial may be warranted, so that a jury can fairly consider the evidence.

With that in mind, why couldn't the justice dept decide to investigate based on bias charges?

I'm not expecting you to have all the answers (what a first day you're having on FR!), but you sound of a legal mind, at least moreso than myself, so thanks for the dialogue. You said in a later post to someone else -

Again, I'm not agreeing with this. But I worry about the ramifications. The law doesn't see him as killing his wife either. So this will haunt us for a long time.

That's what I've been thinking also. These rulings set a dangerous precedent. It was bad enough for the state of FL, but it may turn out that forcing the federal courts to address it as well just made it that much worse.

93 posted on 03/23/2005 10:46:31 AM PST by agrace
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