This is really upsetting to me.Stacking the appeals courts with
prosecutors.Seven of nine are former prosecutors.They are increasingly hostile to the inmates and their lawyers.
Its pretty sad when they plagiarize clarence thomas.
Anyone know how many * appointed?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/national/05texas.html?oref=login&th<snip>
Death Sentences in Texas Cases Try Supreme Court's Patience
By ADAM LIPTAK and RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: December 5, 2004
n the past year, the Supreme Court has heard three appeals from inmates on death row in Texas, and in each case the prosecutors and the lower courts suffered stinging reversals.
In a case to be argued on Monday, the court appears poised to deliver another rebuke.
Perhaps as telling is the exasperated language in decisions this year from a Supreme Court that includes no categorical opponent of the death penalty. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in June that the Fifth Circuit was "paying lip service to principles" of appellate law in issuing death penalty rulings with "no foundation in the decisions of this court."
In an unsigned decision in another case last month, the Supreme Court said the Court of Criminal Appeals "relied on a test we never countenanced and now have unequivocally rejected." The decision was made without hearing argument, a move that ordinarily signals that the error in the decision under review was glaring.