Nationally, the biggest piece of criminal law news this week was that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a bill that repeals the death penalty in Illinois. He also commuted the sentences of the fifteen men on death row to life in prison. (All had been sentenced to death since 2000, when then-Governor George Ryan, as he left office, commuted the sentences of the 167 men who were on death row at that time.) The New York Times has the story here. In other news: 1.Additional federal charges have been filed against Jared Loughner in connection with the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords. According to the New York Times, the latest indictment includes "charges involving victims who were not federal officials but merely attending a 'federally provided activity," namely, the "Congress on Your Corner" event Giffords was holding at the time of the shooting. Both the Times and other commentators question the sufficiency of the federal nexus for the additional victims, and wonder whether the government is overreaching, or at least injecting a difficult legal issue into an otherwise slam-dunk case. 2. The Wall Street Journal has this interesting article, which begins: "A growing number of states are renouncing some of the long prison sentences that have been a hallmark of the war on drugs and instead focusing on treatment, which once-skeptical lawmakers now say is proven to be less expensive and more effective." (Hat tip: Sentencing Law and Policy.) I was especially interested in a graphic attached to the [...]
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