US high court considers California death penalty case News
US high court considers California death penalty case

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Tuesday heard oral arguments on whether convicted murderer Ronald Sanders was wrongly sentenced to death by a California jury that improperly relied on invalid aggravating factors in deciding the sentence. Sanders was sentenced to death in 1982 for beating a woman to death in a drug-related robbery. In arguments Tuesday in Brown v. Sanders [Duke Law case backgrounder], the attorney for the state of California said that the death sentence should still stand because the jury also relied on valid aggravating factors in arriving at its decision. Sanders' attorney argued the sentence should be overruled because the invalid factors still influenced the jury's decision on the valid factors. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case [JURIST report] earlier this year after the Ninth Circuit threw out the death sentence [PDF opinion]. The ABA has merit briefs for the case. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.