Free Republic

Supreme Court: Juries Must Decide Death Penalty June 24— By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional on Monday for judges rather than juries to decide whether to sentence a convicted killer to death, a ruling that could affect nearly 800 death-row inmates in nine states.The high court by a 7-2 vote overturned its 1990 decision and struck down an Arizona capital sentencing law that gives sole responsibility to the judge to make factual findings necessary to sentence a convicted murderer to death.The ruling followed a landmark decision last week in which the nation's...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court overturned the death sentences of dozens of convicted killers Monday, ruling that juries and not judges must make such life-or-death decisions. The 7-2 ruling affects the way death sentences are imposed in at least five states and means that more than 150 death sentences must be reconsidered. Monday's ruling concerned instances in which juries determined defendants' guilt or innocence and judges alone decided their punishment. The court held that such a sentence imposed by a judge violates a defendant's constitutional right to a trial by jury. It was the second major Supreme Court ruling...

An assassination attempt on the heir to Saddam Hussein may signal a succession struggle in Baghdad. Iraqi opposition sources said Qusay Hussein, the younger son of Saddam, survived a car bombing on June 9 in Baghdad when his car was booby-trapped. The Supreme Revolutionary Council, a Shi'ite opposition group backed by Iran, said Qusay was coming out of the presidential palace and heading for the headquarters of Iraqi General Intelligence when he came under attack, Middle East Newsline reported. Qusay, who is favored to succeed Saddam if his regime continues in power, was to have entered a waiting car that...

The sagging stock market is diverging significantly from the rising economy in a very unusual way. Much of this disconnect can be traced to a loss of investor trust due to corporate corruption and the breakdown of accounting standards. Worries about domestic terrorist bombings are also weighing down Wall Street.But there's more to it than that. Anti-growth policy mistakes by the Bush administration could be curbing investor appetites for longer-run stock-market commitments. The administration's economic message has increasingly shifted away from the Reaganesque, free-market, supply-side policy direction that George W. Bush touted during the 2000 campaign and the first...

Cops seize driver's license from crime scene witnessesBy Jason Alley, Heritage Newspapers LINCOLN PARK — Witness a crime or an accident in Lincoln Park and you risk having your driver’s license confiscated by police to ensure that you cooperate with them in their investigation.That’s what happened to 62-year-old Bud Butka on May 26 when he was visiting relatives and witnessed a deadly discharge of gunfire between two police officers who shot and killed a man who they said lunged at them with knives.After the shots were fired and police began their investigation, Butka went over to officers to tell them...

Israel has completed procedures to prevent suicide air attacks similar to those which rocked the United States on September 11. Officials said the military and civilian authorities have introduced new regulations that deal with suspicious aircraft and people near Israeli strategic facilities. They said the air force has also been on the alert for attempted infiltration by hostile airplanes and is prepared to stop suicide air crashes into such facilities as military installations, refineries and office towers.. The air force has been ordered to shoot down any aircraft believed to have entered Israel with hostile intentions, Middle East Newsline reported....

HYDE: No winner in Williams' incidentsPublished June 21, 2002 As Ricky Williams keeps making headlines in his first days as a Dolphin, you have to look pretty hard to find a winner. It's not the Dolphins, who wanted his headlines to involve touchdowns. It's not the team's fans, who wanted stories about "a good Dolphins drive" to involve more than Williams arriving home without incident. The winner isn't the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, which has been bashed by Williams. It isn't necessarily truth or justice, though if this keeps up a jury might decide that. Finally, the winner certainly isn't...

When Gov. Gray Davis launched a slew of attack ads last winter against former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, the political punditry proclaimed him a genius. By knocking the liberal Republican out of the party's gubernatorial race, Davis was handpicking Bill Simon as his opponent, a conservative "extremist" who would quickly fold in a brass-knuckles general campaign. So far, though, the Republican challenger remains strong, as evidenced by Davis' anti-Simon TV spots. The First Commandment of political campaigning is: Never go on the offensive against a hapless opponent -- it gives him undue publicity as well as the sympathy vote....

The National Organization for Women plans a demonstration in the nation's Capitol this summer to oppose President Bush's blanket nominations of conservative candidates to federal courts appointments across the country. Voting delegates endorsed the rally as part of an energetic nationwide campaign of petitions, postcards and local, state and federal lobbying. The decision came as the feminist organization wrapped up its three-day national conference Sunday in St. Paul. "If all of George Bush's nominations are approved, conservatives will control 11 of the nation's 13 federal circuits," NOW president Kim Gandy said. NOW members say that political imbalance would threaten advances...

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 24, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Israeli tanks encircled Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's badly damaged headquarters and bulldozers built earthen barricades in the streets as the army seized control of Ramallah early Monday in its expanding West Bank invasion.Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also said the military was "preparing massive activity" against the militant Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. Sharon spoke hours after Israel delivered the first blow of the new offensive - a helicopter missile strike on two cars carrying Hamas members, killing six Palestinians and injuring five in the southern Gaza Strip...

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Jun 24, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Three Germans arrested during riots outside a European Union summit last December received one-year suspended prison sentences Monday.The three men, aged between 19 and 21, were accused of hurling stones at police guarding the EU summit in the Brussels suburb of Laeken and resisting arrest,The demonstrators, who pleaded innocent, were convicted largely on the evidence from police witnesses.Defense lawyer Joke Callewaert said her clients should have been acquitted and accused the court of using them to set an example to deter future demonstrations against international meetings.A series of demonstrations before...

JERUSALEM, June 24 (Reuters) - Israeli officials said on Monday that legal experts were examining a government-backed plan to deport families of Palestinian suicide bombers as a means of deterring further deadly attacks. "The security cabinet has decided in principle to deport families of suicide bombers and leaders of terror groups from the West Bank to Gaza but this is under legal examination," an Israeli political source said, referring to the security cabinet that groups Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and top ministers. Officials said the army and the Justice Ministry were examining the proposal, discussed by the security cabinet...

KABUL, Jun 24, 2002 (Kyodo via COMTEX) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai swore in his cabinet Monday, formally launching the transitional government that will pave the way for forming a fully representative government in the war-ravaged country.The government has taken over from the interim administration, which ended the six-month mandate on reconstructing the strife-torn country since last December. The cabinet comprises 31 members.Karzai, who also headed the interim administration, was sworn in as president of the transitional government last Wednesday, pledging to continue the fight against terrorism and end ethnic conflicts and warlordism in the country.Afghanistan began the rehabilitation process...

This is a jittery moment in our country. We await al-Qaida's next move, while the War on Terrorism has melted into a game of shuffle-the-boxes on the government organization chart. Every politician in America has been on television warning Saddam Hussein that he's got just a few months to use those weapons of mass destruction we're darned sure he's got. The stock market and the economy are torturing us with their indecision. And, look, is there global warming or what? But America is blessed. We have an institution designed to provide a soothing balm of continuity in turbulent times like...

A confrontation is brewing inside the Air Force over whether to relegate the B-1B bomber to a standoff role or maintain its ability to fly over defended targets and drop ordnance. B-1B backers fear that once the aircraft is consigned to a standoff role, senior Air Force officials will take the next step and retire the aircraft altogether. The B-1 is considered vulnerable because the B-52 already is dedicated to the standoff mission and can do it cheaper. The controversy harkens back to last year's Air Force decision to reduce the number of bombers from 90 to 65, which...

All of the talk in the media lately sorrounds the fact that CNN is accused of being biased against Israel. This includes a list of events such as Ted Turner saying that Israel is terrorist and talk that some Israeli satellite companies had activated Fox News on it's system and may take CNN off. If you go to CNN.com today you find this: If you went to a baseball game tonight, and looked around, you would see about 25,000 other fans. If you were living in Israel, one of you would likely be killed in a terrorist attack in the...

At any given time, the Air Force has about 200 "excess" tanker engines, worth $877 million, sitting "idle" in depots, the service's auditors said in a draft report obtained by Defense Week. If Air Force officials had used those fully functional, older engines instead of new ones in upgrading KC-135 tankers, and accomplished a few other efficiencies, they could have saved $1 billion, the internal report says. And they still can, if they decide to replace more of the engines. But instead of upgrading more KC-135s, the Air Force wants to lease from Boeing 100 commercial 767 jetliners transformed...

LISA SINGHANIA, AP Business WriterMonday, June 24, 2002 ©2002 Associated Press URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/24/national1028EDT0543.DTL (06-24) 07:28 PDT NEW YORK (AP) -- The stock market extended its slump Monday, pulling the Nasdaq composite index beneath the low it reached following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In the first hour of trading, the technology-dominated Nasdaq fell to 1,422.86, below the 1,423.19 it closed at on Sept. 21, the end of the first week of trading after the attacks. The drop below that post-Sept. 11 milestone was inevitable in a stock market depressed for weeks by bleak corporate earnings prospects, accounting scandals and the...

Wednesday was a very unusual news day in Washington. There was the second tragic "homicide bombing" in 36 hours in Jerusalem, which caused President Bush to postpone his Middle East message one-hour after the “homicide bombing, the second postponement in two days;” and there were three other events shortly thereafter. Here are the news items and the corresponding times: Suicide Bombing in Jerusalem (12:10 PM EDT / 7:10 PM Jerusalem time) President Bush Postpones his Middle East message for the second time in two days (1:00 PM EDT) Lightning disables two of four Fire and Medical emergency radio antennas in...

Kuwait will help topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, provided Saudi Arabian support and U.N. resolutions underpin the effort, and successful steps have been taken to end Palestinian-Israeli clashes, according to Kuwaiti officials and experts. "So long as Saddam Hussein’s regime is in power, Iraq will remain a source of threat to Kuwait," which it invaded in 1990, said Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Kuwaiti defense minister. "Kuwait will participate in a military campaign to remove the Iraqi regime only if the military action came in compliance with a United Nations’ resolution," Jaber told Defense News on June 18. Most...