The New York Times reports:

The convictions of dozens of death-row inmates in California are coming under legal scrutiny because of accusations that Jews and black women were excluded from juries in capital trials in Alameda County as "standard practice."

The allegation is contained in an affidavit filed in a habeas appeal of a death row inmate. It was written by the prosecutor:

Mr. Quatman, who worked for 26 years as a deputy district attorney and prosecuted the case, said the trial judge, Stanley Golde, advised him during jury selection that "no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber."

"Judge Golde was only telling me what I already should have known to do," Mr. Quatman's statement said. "It was standard practice to exclude Jewish jurors in death cases."

Human Rights Watch weighs in on the Bush Administration's decision to withdraw from the Vienna Convention's protocol of providing consular protection to citizens arrested abroad.

The U.S. government’s decision to withdraw from a protocol governing diplomatic disputes has immediate consequences for the rights of foreigners detained in the United States and could endanger U.S. citizens who are detained abroad, Human Rights Watch said today.

According to a decision by the Bush administration this week, the ICJ, or World Court, will henceforth have no power to hear cases brought by countries on behalf of detained non-citizens in the United States. Americans in the custody of foreign countries who have been denied access to their country’s embassies will also not have access to the ICJ.

You had to know something was up when President Bush agreed to give the 51 Mexican death row inmates in the U.S. new hearings, as ordered by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Now, his purpose becomes a little clearer. Wednesday, the U.S. officially withdrew from the Vienna Convention protocol it proposed and ratified in 1963:

The Bush administration has decided to pull out of an international agreement that opponents of the death penalty have used to fight the sentences of foreigners on death row in the United States, officials said yesterday.

In a two-paragraph letter dated March 7, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that the United States "hereby withdraws" from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States proposed the protocol in 1963 and ratified it -- along with the rest of the Vienna Convention -- in 1969.

The protocol provided that its signatories would grant the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the last word when their citizens raised a claim of being illegally deprived of the right to meet with a diplomat of their home country when jailed abroad.

The bill to ban the death penalty in New Mexico passed another hurdle yesterday. It was approved by the Senate Rules Committee. It now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee where prospects are said to look good.

In February, the bill passed the New Mexico House.

Now that the Supreme Court has determined that the juvenile death penalty violates evolving global standards of human decency and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, isn't it time for the Court to take it another step forward and abolish the death penalty for everyone?

Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute makes the case here.

by TChris

Death penalty supporters who confidently proclaim that the truely innocent are never executed should consider the case of Lena Baker. Here's what John Cole Vodicka, director of Georgia's Prison & Jail Project, says about the circumstances of her 1945 execution.

"This black woman was wrongfully prosecuted and executed because she was defending herself against a white man who repeatedly sexually abused her," Cole Vodicka said. "Lena Baker was tried without proper legal representation."

Vodicka said Baker killed a white man in March 1945, who tried to rape her. He said Baker final words were, “I did it in self-defense, or I would have killed myself..." Baker was convicted by an all white male jury in a one-day trial.

Lena Baker is the only woman to die in Georgia's electric chair. She was honored at a memorial on Saturday.

The New Mexico state house voted today to abolish the death penalty in favor of life without parole. It now goes to the state senate.

What will Gov. Bill Richardson do if this bill reaches his desk? It's a political hot potato. Richardson has been in favor of the death penalty in the past. But if he vetoes the bill, it could have a negative effect on his chances for a 2008 Democratic nomination for President.

The last time the N.M. state senate voted on a bill to end the death penalty, it defeated the bill by only one vote.

Legislators who believe the death penalty is a deterrent are misinformed.

A bipartisan group of Illinois legislators have introduced a bill to raise the burden of proof in capital cases to "beyond all doubt."

House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) and Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Collinsville) are among a group of tough-on-crime legislators who introduced the legislation that underscores a commitment to prevent any executions unless there is absolute certainty of a person's guilt.

"It ensures, we believe, that innocent people are not sentenced to death," Cross said. "Just because I'm for the death penalty doesn't mean we should sentence people that are innocent to Death Row." ....If there remained what the legislation calls "residual doubt" during the sentencing phase of a capital trial, the defendant would be sentenced to life in prison instead of lethal injection.

Some legislators who oppose the death penalty fear this will lead to a lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty instituted in 2000 by foromer Ill. Governor George Ryan. Others believe the change would not survive court challenges because of dual standards of proof--beyond a reasonable doubt for the guilt phase and beyond all doubt for the penalty phase.

Is Texas about to execute an innocent man? Pablo Melendez, Jr. is scheduled for execution March 14. Even the victim's mother thinks he is innocent.

Melendez’s case is alarming because he has a strong innocence claim. His case is surrounded by evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, conflicting witnesses, and undeniable facts which point to his innocence. Perhaps most compelling, is the fact that Gracie Jett, mother of victim Michael Sanders, is convinced that Melendez did not murder her son.

Here's why

• There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime.
• One victim of the crime described his attacker to police. A composite sketch was drawn of this suspect - a sketch which does not resemble Melendez at all.
• He was convicted largely on the testimony of gang members and jail house informants.

Click on the link above to add your voice of opposition to the execution.

Here's our feel good story of the day: The Nebraska Supreme Court has granted clemency to Murphy, an Alaskan malamute-shepherd. Murphy had been sentenced to death for fighting with another dog.

We conclude that the order for the destruction of the dog was not reasonable," wrote high court Judge John Wright. "The county court ... abused its discretion." He noted that the other dog's owner waited two days to have the dog seen by a veterinarian, and the bill was only $34.06.

At the sentencing hearing last fall, the sheriff and vet were on Murphy's side. Only the prosecutor had called Murphy vicious.

.... the Dittoes' lawyer, Mark Fahleson, said authorities trying to kill the dog were demonstrating "a bloodthirsty vengeance once thought reserved for only the most cold-blooded of human killers."

The prosecutor's boss was fine with today's ruling:

Attorney General Jon Bruning did not seem particularly upset Friday that his office lost. "Every dog has its day," he said.

Murphy's owners are scheduling a party, and report Murphy is likely to get a steak.

Senate bill 60 in Texas would require judges in capital cases to instruct juries that they can consider life without parole as an option in capital murder cases. Prosecutors are divided in their opinion of the bill. The bill was introduced by Sen. Eddie Lucio in November and is now in the criminal justice committee.

Some Texas newspapers and columnists are more enlightened. Today, Seth Oldmixon of the Daily Texan provides vigorous support for the bill. The Brownsville Herald in this editorial also weighs in in favor of the bill.

If you live in Texas and either oppose the death penalty or believe jurors are entitled to know they have this option, contact your legislators and let them know. Check out the Texas Moratorium Network and their activism center.

Dennis Wayne Bagwell is scheduled to be executed tonight in Texas. He maintains his innocence. But he says he wants to die.

"My hope is: Hurry up and go through," Bagwell told the Associated Press Wednesday from a small visiting cage outside death row. "I've been waiting for this for over a year now." While maintaining his innocence and crediting his appeals attorneys for caring and trying to save him, "I'm just ready to get it over with," he said.

"If they offered me a life sentence, I wouldn't take it. I'm not walking through these hallways as an 80- or 90-year-old for something I didn't do."