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A judge tossed out California's newly adopted lethal injection procedure on Friday, throwing the state's already stalled capital punishment system into further doubt. Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D'Opal, finalizing a tentative ruling she issued a day earlier, said prison officials failed to properly explain why they rejected a one-drug process using only a barbiturate when one of their experts recommended it as being superior to the three-drug mixture that was adopted to execute inmates. *** Prison officials will now either have to appeal or again revise their lethal injection procedures and submit them to public comment, a process...

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No serious constitutional argument can be made against the death penalty. The endless campaigns to ban it cost taxpayers millions to defend. By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew Grossman On the September night that the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death, a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Supreme Court in Washington to protest America's continued practice of capital punishment. But they were in the wrong place. The protesters should have assembled 600 miles southeast, in Atlanta.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida state lawmaker is calling for a return to the electric chair and firing squads for those sitting on the state's death row. Rep. Brad Drake, R-Eucheeanna, this week filed a bill that would end the use of lethal injection. Instead, those with a death sentence could choose between electrocution or a firing squad. Drake said the idea came to him after having a conversation at a DeFuniak Springs Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the September execution of Manuel Valle. Valle's lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing that a new drug...

There’s a two bedroom basement apartment for rent in Toronto’s northwest end —one bathroom, newly painted and renovated with a side entrance. The ad, posted on popular classified site Kijiji.ca, comes with the typical caveats —no pets allowed, no smokers. And then, a less common request: Only Muslims need apply. It’s the exact kind of specifications the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently warned landlords against putting in their online classified ads —any denial of a prospective tenant due to race, ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability, among other things, is grounds for discrimination according to the Ontario...

A seaside town in Australia is in uproar over the punishment a mother has handed out to her young son, making him wear a sign in public saying he's a thief. 'Do not trust me. I will steal from you as I am a thief,' the sign around his neck read as he stood in a park in the Queensland town of Townsville. He remained standing with his head lowered in shame while his family ate lunch nearby. But his humiliation did not end there - he was made to wear Shrek ears and was also seen writing lines, believed...

Wells, like many attorneys who plunge into this protracted and rewarding but frustrating legal venture, is morally and philosophically opposed to the death penalty. Although 34 states have it, there are other reasons Minnesota should continue to oppose it. Several credible national studies conclude, and nearly 90 percent of the nation's top criminologists in a recent survey agree, that the death penalty has very little, if any, effect at all on deterring violent crime. So agrees the law enforcement community. A national poll of police chiefs placed it dead last, pun intended, on ways to reduce violent crime. The chiefs...

The U.S. dollar may weaken and Treasury yields rise when Asian markets reopen on Monday, though any selling in response to ratings agency S&P's downgrade of the United States is likely to be tempered by the escalating crisis in the euro zone. The S&P cut in the U.S. long-term credit rating by a notch to AA-plus is an unprecedented blow and results from concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. It called the outlook "negative," signaling another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months. "The initial reaction will be a high degree of uncertainty...

The man allegedly behind Norway's devastating terror attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, is now under arrest. And he should count himself lucky for—if entirely undeserving of—a penal system in that country that is among the cushiest in the world. There's no capital punishment, and the longest jail term allowed is 21 years (a caveat: if a prisoner is deemed to still be a threat, his sentence can be extended in five-year blocks indefinitely, though it's highly unlikely, according to Norwegian officials). In Norway, rehabilitation is the guiding principle, not punishment—a somewhat difficult notion to swallow given the gravity and callousness of...

...the trip is already provoking disappointment from Africa advocates who argue that President Obama, whose father was Kenyan, hasn't devoted enough time to the continent since winning the presidency. Mwiza Munthali, public outreach director of TransAfrica Forum, argues that U.S. officials "are not seeing Africa as a big priority. There has been some ambivalence." The president has made just one trip to sub-Saharan Africa since his Jan. 2009 inauguration and has chosen not to accompany his wife on her journey. This isn't the first time the First Lady has come under fire for travel plans. Below we review some of...

A Facebook post by nephew Billy got me thinking today. He wrote, "If it's legal to get an abortion, it should be legal to abort a child molester. Just sayin'." It occurred to me that, since Governor Pat Quinn signed the legislation abolishing the death penalty on March 9, 2011, he established curious moral inconsistency, given his radical, enthusiastic support for another death penalty: Abortion. In the State of Illinois, an unborn human being who has never committed a crime can be executed, but due to the repeal of the death penalty here, Cecil S. Sutherland, who abducted, raped and...

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.(Deuteronomy 32:22-24)The doctrine of the Divine judgment of sinners is terrible to truly contemplate. So terrible that many evangelicals are retreating from it...

Her name was Dorothy Dixon, and she was betrayed by a person the state told her she could trust. The person, Michelle Riley, worked as a coordinator for a regional center that helps developmentally disabled people get food, clothing, and a place to live. Dorothy had the mind of a child, so she needed all the help she could get to survive in a world of adults who usually have very little time for the mentally disabled. In her capacity of helping Dorothy, Michelle would eventually strike up a good friendship with her. It wasn't long before Michelle decided that...

A man just died at the age of 88. True, he had a long life, but he would have had an even longer one if he had not been in an automobile accident. If these were the only important facts, we would be saddened by his death, but we would be grateful for his long life. If we add the fact that he was a retired Marine officer, we would be even more grateful − for his service to our country, and for the fact that he survived it. But when we add another important fact, our mood changes. We...

People’s Republic of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) signed legislation that would restrict the imposition of the death penalty in his state to those under nine months of pre-birth age. The signing was accompanied by the commutation of the sentences of all those currently on “death row” in the state’s prisons. The Governor rejected arguments that the heinous acts committed by those sentenced to death might warrant the punishment. “The inhumanity of the death penalty has been a blot on our society for too long,” Quinn said. “We have been subjecting human beings to anxiety and terror. Being held behind...

Have you ever had this conversation with a liberal who is soft on crime--the kind who blames "society" instead of the criminal and thinks hardened felons can be reformed by being nice to them? This video mocks and tears apart the liberal talking points about the criminal justice system. Video Link: The Liberal View of Crime and Punishment

Shirley Lynette Ledford was a pretty, 16-year-old teenage girl just coming into her own in 1979, the year she was kidnapped and murdered. She would have turned 48 this year. I got to thinking about her Wednesday after reading another story about how we can't seem to come up with a humane way to thin out the waiting list on San Quentin's death row without causing murderers too much pain and suffering. It's a hard argument to swallow when you know the pain and suffering Ledford went through at the end of her short life. I can still hear her...

The new religious leader at the Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan is raising eyebrows and objections from gay advocates over his views on homosexuality...A fight over the planned Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan centers around its location of being two blocks from the World Trade Center site. But now the controversy is broadening as some gay advocates are airing concerns about the new imam who's joined the project. In a lecture Imam Abdallah Adhami sells on the Internet, he offers the following explanation for the existence of homosexuality: "An enormously, overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling...

A bipartisan panel investigating the financial crisis has referred cases of potential wrongdoing by financial industry officials to the Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The 2009 law creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission instructs the congressionally appointed panel to refer anyone who may have violated the law to the Justice Department and state attorneys general

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio says it's switching its lethal injection drug to an anesthetic commonly used to euthanize pets as a shortage of the drug normally used for executions has worsened.

Thanks to Michael Savage. Well, if anyone had any remaining doubts about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political leanings, you can rest easy. He’s commuted the prison sentence of the son of a leftist political crony, former Democrat California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. Nunez’s son, Esteban Nunez, was convicted in the October 2008 death of a San Diego State University student. According to the Los Angeles Times’ story, Esteban Nunez and three friends, all of whom were intoxicated, attacked the victim Luis Santos when he refused to allow Nunez et al entry to a fraternity party. Nunez’s friend, Ryan Jett, was convicted of...

Use compassion for those who deserve it. After we have punished the criminal, expressed compassion for all his victims, and done our best to relieve their suffering, then we can feel compassion for the criminal. But till then, feeling compassion for both criminal and victim leads only to more criminals and more victims – who need more compassion. So we feel good about ourselves, while helping to make the world a worse place. If you doubt this, ask Dru Sjodin. The 22-year-old University of North Dakota student disappeared, and her blood was found in the car of a man who...

Health Reform Law's Legal, Political Obstacles Continue to MountAIR DATE: Dec. 20, 2010 JEFFREY BROWN: Next: new legal challenges for the landmark health reform law, as this past week marked a major moment in the battle between the Obama administration and a number of states. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) One of the most important and controversial pieces of the health reform law signed by President Obama last March is the so-called individual insurance mandate, under which individuals must buy health insurance beginning in 2014, or pay a penalty. The fines would be phased in, starting at $95 per person that first...

Mr. Frank's attitude seems to be that Americans need to justify why they should keep the money they inherit instead of the government needing to justify why they should be allowed to confiscate it. Video at link.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — He's killed more people than the Son of Sam, but there are no made-for-TV movies about Alfred Gaynor. The one-time handyman did not even pick up a macabre nickname as he attacked and strangled at least eight women in his hometown of Springfield in the 1990s, becoming one of his state's most prolific serial killers. The scale of his killing spree only recently became clear when Gaynor, imprisoned on four murder convictions, confessed this fall to four other unsolved slayings in which he'd been a longtime suspect. Charges are possible in two more deaths for which...

Delegates at today's Republican Party State Central Committee approved a 2-year party ban on 18 high profile Republicans who supported Independence Party candidate Tom Horner. The list includes former GOP governors Al Quie and Arne Carlson and former US Senator Dave Durenberger. On a 59 to 55 vote, the motion would forbid them from being Republican delegates or attending the Republican National Convention in 2012. Supporters of the motion say it would hold people accountable for calling themselves Republicans yet supporting a rival candidate. Delegate Jim Newberger of Becker says Democrat Mark Dayton may not be leading the recount if...

Punishment Phase for Charlie Rangel Set for ThursdayPosted: November 17, 2010 WASHINGTON — It took House investigators 2½ years and a jury of congressional peers two days to conclude Rep. Charles Rangel of New York violated House rules. A decision on his punishment will be much quicker. Possible sanctions include a House vote deploring his conduct, a fine and denial of certain privileges. The House ethics committee set a hearing Thursday on the appropriate punishment for Rangel, a Democrat who formerly wielded great influence as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. That's only two days after an ethics...

Rev. Peterson Supports Rep. Rangel Ethics Conviction; Calls On Ethics Panel To Deliver Tough Punishment Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND Action, issued a statement in support of the House ethics panel decision to convict Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) of breaking ethics rules. An ethics panel of eight House members deliberated over two days and convicted the former Ways and Means chairman on 11 counts of financial and fundraising misconduct. The embattled 20-term congressman walked out of his own hearing and was not present when the verdict was announced. The full ethics committee will now conduct a...

MSNBC says Keith Olbermann will be back on the air Tuesday, ending his suspension for violating NBC's rules against making political donations after two shows. MSNBC's chief executive Phil Griffin said late Sunday that after several days of deliberation, he had determined that two days off the air was "an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy." The left-leaning cable network's most popular personality acknowledged donating $2,400 apiece to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. NBC News prohibits its employees from making political donations unless an exception is granted...

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - An East Allen County Schools parent is accusing her son's teacher of spanking him with his pants down in front of the class. Fort Wayne Police confirm a detective is investigating an incident at Village Elementary after the child's mother called police Monday. In a report, the mother says the child was acting up in class. The teacher made the student sit in the corner and when he continued to act up the teacher pulled the boys pants down and spanked him for misbehaving. The mom says the child is mildly disabled. East Allen...

A former boarding school head was today facing a lengthy jail term after being convicted of abusing boy pupils during the 1970s and 1980s Derek Slade, 61, was convicted of more than 50 offences and will be sentenced on Monday. . . **Reign of terror: Derek Slade, pictured here when he was interviewed by ITN in 1982 speaking in favor of corporal punishment, subjected boys to beatings and sexual assaults** The court heard that Oxford-educated Slade, who has no teaching qualifications, set up the school with colleagues.

A former headmaster accused of assaulting and sexually abusing schoolboys at two East Anglian schools yesterday admitted that he was a paedophile. Derek Slade told a jury that there was a sexual motive behind his “excessive” smackings, canings, slipperings, and beatings of boys at St George’s School, Great Finborough, near Stowmarket, in the late 1970s and early 80s. The 61-year-old yesterday conceded that he went beyond what was reasonable corporal punishment and feared that he had caused long-lasting physiological harm to pupils who attended the boarding school he formed in Wicklewood, near Wymondham, Norfolk, and later at Great Finborough. The...

An Enfield High School teacher has been accused of inappropriately touching a student and was ordered to have no contact with her student while he works at the school. Court records state that Francis Hajosy, 54, of Stafford, spanked the student. He has been suspended, the superintendent said. He was arrested on Tuesday and charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and second-degree breach of peace, according to court records. Hajosy was arrested after a school resource officer was notified of a June 9 incident, according to the Journal Inquirer. He is accused of spanking a student who was visiting the class,...

WASHINGTON -- Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel said yesterday that investigators have unearthed new allegations of misconduct against him, while House Democratic leaders increased the pressure on him to reach a settlement before a congressional trial starts Thursday. "We waited almost two years, and they finally investigated, and guess what -- they have some more alleged violations," Rangel said. The embattled pol did not reveal whether the latest accusations were previously unknown to the public or were related to the original charges that prompted the probe by the House Ethics Committee. The alleged misdeeds include Rangel using House stationery to solicit...

/begin my excerpts RFA: N. Korean National Soccer Team Put to Ideological Criticism Session after their Return 2010-07-27 09:33 According to report by Radio Free Asia (RFA) on July 27, N. Korean national soccer team, who lost all three games including 0-7 rout by Portugal at 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournaments, was put to ideological criticism session after their return. Quoting a Chinese businessman who is a reliable source of N. Korean affairs, it reported, "On July 2, there was an 'ideological struggle' session at People's Cultural Palace in Pyongyang for players of national soccer team who took part in...

Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups....

Unruly students have turned some Memphis classrooms into war zones where teachers have been subjected to verbal and physical attacks, according to a school board commissioner who has introduced a resolution to reinstate corporal punishment. “Teachers, for several years now, have been increasingly agitated by the lack of classroom discipline,” said School Board Commissioner Kenneth Whalum. “It’s out of hand, man.” Memphis city schools banned corporal punishment five years ago. Since then, according to Whalum, teachers have been subjected to out-of-control kids. “They are being abused,” he said. “Teachers have been hospitalized after getting attacked by middle schoolers. It’s a...

"Invisible sanctions or punishments are a notion that I read about in a book by a former director of the National Institute of Justice, Jeremy Travis. In his book about the challenges facing prisoners re-entering society and all of the implications of various criminal justice policies, he describes these invisible sanctions as any number of revocation of civil rights and/or additional conditions placed upon former prisoners. Sex offender registration falls into this category, according to Travis. The basic idea being that these are punishments or controls placed on individuals beyond their typical sentence and which operate largely through unknown or...

Barring a last-minute reprieve, Ronnie Lee Gardner will be strapped into a chair, a hood will be placed over his head and a small white target will be pinned over his heart. The order will come: "Ready, aim ..." The 49-year-old convicted killer will be executed by a team of five anonymous marksmen firing with a matched set of .30-caliber rifles. He is to be the third person executed by firing squad in Utah -- or anywhere else in the U.S. -- since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Utah was a long holdout in keeping the method, which...

My name is Marc Schenker, and I'm a freelance writer. Politically, I'm a committed conservative. I write for Associated Content, a popular news site that gets more unique visitors per month than the Washington Post or the Huffington Post, according to web analytics company Compete.com. I'm a freelance political writer there and was paid per article I publish through an ad revenue-sharing business model. Ostensibly, Associated Content claims to be a non-partisan website, encouraging its contributors to publish articles at will on any topic without prohibitions towards political ideology… unless, as it turned out in my case, you are conservative....

(CNN) -- A Lebanese man charged with sorcery and sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia is scheduled to be beheaded on Friday, the man's lawyer said Wednesday. May El Khansa, the attorney for Ali Hussain Sibat, told CNN that she and Sibat's family were informed about the upcoming execution. She said she heard from a source in Saudi Arabia with knowledge of the case and the proceedings that Saudi authorities "will carry out the execution." The Saudi Ministry of Justice could not immediately be reached for comment on the matter. El Khansa said she has appealed to Lebanon's prime minister,...

I don’t believe that any company is “too big to fail.” If a company has adhered to risky business practices, and the risks fail, then I think the company should be allowed to fail. I’d far rather have seen our government make it a bit easier for small and mid-sized businesses in this country to stay afloat, rather than shell out tens and hundreds of billions of TARP dollars on the likes of AIG, CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, and the likes. That said, however, I definitely don’t think the United States government should be meddling in the financial affairs of businesses...

SACRAMENTO, A California mother said she had her 11-year-old son hold a sign on a street corner for three hours to apologize for being disrespectful to his teacher. Cassandra Rollins of Sacramento said she and Ahmad Rollins' father decided to have the boy apologize to his fifth-grade teacher by holding a sign detailing his offense and remorse on the busy corner of Truxel Road and West El Camino Avenue, KCRA-TV, Sacramento, reported Tuesday. Rollins said her son's worst offense was calling the teacher a "jackass." "It's important to respect authority, and I hope parents agree with me," she said. Ahmad...

Chelsea went missing from her San Diego area home. Her father found her car near a running trail. In addition to being a college-bound honor student who maintained a 4.2 grade-point average despite carrying four advanced-placement classes, as well as being an accomplished musician, Chelsea was also a long-distance runner. Sheriff’s deputies and civilian volunteers searched the park where the running trail is located, as well as diving into a nearby lake. According to reports, her underwear was found near the trail. But five days after Chelsea vanished, her body was found in a shallow grave near the lake. Chelsea’s...

Kansas will consider abolishing the death penalty next year as death sentences are declining across the United States. Fewer people were sentenced to death this year than any other year since 1976, according to a report released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center...Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, has scheduled four days of hearings beginning Jan. 19 on a new bill that would eliminate the death penalty in Kansas... But Kansas' top prosecutor said this week he wants to see the death penalty continue. "I think it's a just punishment for what those folks did," Attorney General Steve Six told...

The six year old who brought his Boy Scout pocket knife to school have been given a reprieve. He won't have to go to reform school for 45 days after all. A Delaware first-grader who was facing 45 days in an alternative school as punishment for taking his favorite camping utensil to school can return to class after the school board made a hasty change granting him a reprieve.

Shame can be a powerful punishment. Just ask the guy who had to stand at the corner of Leesburg Pike and International Drive in Tysons Corner, Va., this morning. You know, the guy wearing the sign that said, "I CHEATED. THIS IS MY PUNISHMENT." A man who identified himself as William Taylor of Centreville, Va. told a passerby that he cheated on his wife -- and she found evidence of it on his cell phone. So the wife allegedly doled out a rather creative punishment: He had to stand at the intersection during morning rush, wearing the handmade sign. We...

Shame can be a powerful punishment. Just ask the guy who had to stand at the corner of Leesburg Pike and International Drive in Tysons Corner, Va., on Wednesday morning. You know, the guy wearing the sign that said, "I CHEATED. THIS IS MY PUNISHMENT." William Taylor, of Centreville, Va., told a passerby that he cheated on his wife -- and she found evidence of it on his cell phone. So the wife doled out a rather creative punishment: He had to stand at the intersection during morning rush, wearing the handmade sign. People reported seeing him as early as...

When questioned about how our leadership is not being forced to take the public plan...Democratic Congressman says he'd take a vote on it, BUT, went on to say..... "My fear is that I want to safeguard employer-based insurance and I don't want to PUNISH federal employees, or city of Maytown employees, or state employees, just because...if you work for government you get employer-based insurance...... I don't want to PUNISH you if you work for Shell, or Linedale or anybody else, so I want employer based insurance to be continued as best we can....." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGZIWGG4LjU