Free Republic

A Kern County man sentenced to death 25 years ago for participating in the double murder of a Mojave couple will not face the death penalty after all. The state attorney general’s office confirmed Friday it will not appeal a federal judge’s decision to throw out the 1983 death sentence of Constantino Carrera. In addition, the Kern County prosecutor who originally handled the case says too much time has passed to retry the case. None of these decisions affect Carrera’s conviction for the 1982 robbery and stabbing deaths of Jack and Carol Hayes, who managed the Imperial 400 Motel in...

CLEVELAND - A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a first-of-its-kind voting rule that required naturalized citizens in Ohio to provide proof of their citizenship if challenged by a poll worker. A group of naturalized citizens, backed by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued in August, alleging the law singled out one group of citizens and placed an unfair burden on them. Secretary of State Ken Blackwell agreed that the rule was unconstitutional and did not challenge the lawsuit at a court hearing Wednesday. Judge Christopher Boyko said the rule raised concerns of profiling and would...

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) - A federal judge threw out evidence against four men charged with laundering more than $60 million through their chain of U.S. Virgin Islands grocery stores, ruling that FBI agents acted in "reckless disregard for the truth." The ruling, released Monday, found that the FBI's search warrant was obtained improperly. It said agents, who had claimed to have seen suspicious tax records from the men, admitted they had only seen a computer printout of the records and did not thoroughly verify the evidence with the U.S. Caribbean territory's Internal Revenue Bureau. U.S. Attorney spokesman...

Supreme Court Throws Out Texas Death Sentence The Supreme Court on Monday overturned the death sentence of a convicted Texas killer because jurors in his trial did not consider his learning disability and other evidence. The unsigned 7-2 decision is another reproach of Texas, which executes more people than any other state. Texas courts had turned down LaRoyce Lathair Smith's appeal of his sentence for the January 1991 killing of a Taco Bell manager during a robbery attempt in Dallas. The victim, 19-year-old Jennifer Soto, was pistol-whipped, shot and stabbed with a butcher knife. In the ruling, justices cited their...