SCOTUS Watch: Odds and Ends / Another Execution

An order was dropped accepting the solicitor general's request regarding a pending matter. Instructions were dropped regarding colors for the types of briefs; I would think these are standard. 

Not sure why that was added here in particular. Such trivia interests the person who feels a need to read all end notes in books.  Also, SCOTUS released oral arguments schedules for March and April. Odds and ends continue to drop as they are on break.

A former colleague raised ethics concerns about Chief Justice Roberts' wife, who in recent years has done legal recruitment work. A couple legal experts on Twitter who I respect handwaved ethical concerns.  Others are more concerned.  If they had a binding ethics law or showed more willingness to care about self-regulation, some might trust them more. 

I also sent a letter to Roberts requesting they put transcripts of opinion announcements on their website. I received a letter back from Sotomayor once but other than that the last time a justice returned favor was Justice Blackmun (and darn if he eventually did vote against all executions).  

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Ruiz, 43, was sentenced to death nearly 15 years ago for the 2007 shooting of Dallas police Senior Cpl. Mark Nix following a high-speed car chase. The chase began while police were searching for a murder suspect, according to court documents. Ruiz’s car eventually slid off the side of the road, and Nix rushed over and began smashing the passenger side window with his police baton. Ruiz fatally shot him in the chest through the back passenger window, court filings state.

This leads me to wonder about the original murder being investigated.  The high-speed chase and smashing of the window sort of thing is the approach that encourages bad results. But, the guy did murder a police officer. So, he was put in jail and has been there for 15 years.  More:

Advocates for Ruiz say that he is deeply remorseful for his 2007 killing of Dallas police Officer Mark Nix and that he has worked to better himself during 14 years on death row. They argue that the jurors at his trial did not consider the sexual molestation, homelessness, and brain damage he suffered as a child, evidence that could have resulted in a life sentence rather than death. According to Nolan, several of the jurors have said that, given the chance, they would reevaluate the case. The foreman of the jury supports commuting Ruiz's sentence to life without parole.

In many nations, fifteen years in a small cage would be enough time, but in this one, we need more.  LWOP continues to be inhumane in my book, an alternative to the death penalty at best "well at least now he has a chance." 

Anyway, as usual, even for a murder of a cop, there are problems. There are the claims of mitigation.  There is the immediate issue in his final appeal ("no comment," including from the two liberals we have come to expect something from) involves racial discrimination in the jury deliberations. 

And, there continues to be a concern (flagged by a lower court judge who was overruled on jurisdictional, not factual, grounds, in a past case) that the execution drugs are expired, resulting in a greater possibility of pain and suffering. There is some evidence, from some reports I saw, the last execution went down in a way that suggests just that.  Oh well. 

Why can't Sotomayor or Jackson make a statement, explaining that surely the claims are serious in principle, but point out why it is not a correct case for review? A person's life is taken by the state.  The execution drugs issue is serious too, but SCOTUS has shown the very very high test they demand there.  That should be a federal claim worthy of review too, including as a state right that is denied without due process. 

He was executed.  More to come later in the month.

ETA: There is a lot of good reporting on these executions, covering various angles. This one after his execution adds some more detail about the crime.  The whole encounter just seems reckless to me and liable to come to a bad end.  This does not take him off the hook. Fleeing from police because you had illegal drugs and were high is not really mitigation for murder.  

But, the whole story to me does suggest even here an execution was not warranted.  If I granted the death penalty was appropriate, I would need to know that death was not a "heat of the moment" sort of thing.  The details also show what sort of crime tends to be involved -- a twenty-something on drugs with little to lose.  Later, detention and remorse.  

The murder of a police officer doing his job is a clear aggravating circumstance.  It is less blatantly dubious than many executions.  But, the whole story leads me to think this is a case where a long prison sentence was warranted.  If he was the murderer they were seeking, it would be a different matter.