There was a mountain of interesting news this week. In Charlotte, CMPD officer Randall Kerrick was indicted for voluntary manslaughter for shooting Jonathan Ferrell. As the Charlotte Observer reports here, the indictment was issued by the second grand jury to consider the case, after the first returned a no true bill. The defense team sought to block the resubmission of the case, but a judge allowed it. As I previously wrote here, North Carolina law appears to allow multiple bites at the indictment apple. In other news: Death penalty sought for marathon bombing defendant. United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the government would seek the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, stating that “[t]he nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision.” The decision was widely expected. CNN has the story here. Movement afoot on mandatory minimums? The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved, 13-5, the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill that would significantly reduce federal mandatory minimums in drug cases. The bill appears to have bipartisan support, though of course it is too early to know whether it will pass. Attorney General Holder supports mandatory minimum reform, but the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys has taken the unusual step of publicly opposing the Attorney General, as discussed here at Crime and Consequences and here at the Huffington Post. In related news, Deputy Attorney General James Cole gave an interesting speech yesterday to the New York State Bar Association in [...]
Faculty Coordinators
