UPDATE ~ Texas governor grants stay of execution for death row inmate News
UPDATE ~ Texas governor grants stay of execution for death row inmate

[JURIST] Governor Rick Perry of Texas granted a stay of execution to Frances Newton Wednesday only two hours before Newton was scheduled to die by lethal injection. Gov. Perry said in a statement that he granted the stay to allow for the retesting of gunpowder residue found on Newton's skirt using technology that was not available in 1988 when Newton was convicted of capital murder. As reported earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended that Perry grant a reprieve of the execution with a 5-1 vote. Newton would have been the first black woman executed in Texas in modern times. Read Governor Perry's press release announcing the stay here. A letter from the ACLU on Newton's behalf, typical of letters sent to Goveror Perry by other rights groups, is here. The Houston Chronicle has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.