This will be the last blog post of 2014. It is also a full and interesting post -- if I do say so myself -- as it has been quite a busy news week, from the Supreme Court on down. Supreme Court to settle Miller retroactivity. The high court granted review this week in a case that will determine whether Miller v. Alabama applies retroactively. Recall that Miller is the case holding that mandatory life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment, and that the retroactivity of Miller is undecided in North Carolina and the subject of a split of authority nationally. Sentencing Law & Policy has the story here. Nebraska and Oklahoma sue Colorado over marijuana legalization. In a rare case invoking the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, Nebraska and Oklahoma have sued Colorado over the latter’s legalization of marijuana. Nebraska and Oklahoma assert that marijuana legalization is contrary to federal law and policy and that legalization in Colorado has led to increased drug use by Nebraska and Oklahoma residents who live near the Colorado line. The Denver Post reports here. Year end death penalty numbers. It isn’t quite the end of the year, but the Death Penalty Information Center has nonetheless issued this year-end report. The figures getting the most media attention are: 35 executions, the lowest number since 1994; and 72 death sentences, the fewest since the modern death penalty system arose in the mid-1970s. There are many possible reasons for the decline in death sentences, including a [...]
Faculty Coordinators
