It’s way too early to tell whether the United States under President-elect Barack Obama will restore realism, sanity and lawfulness to its immigration system. But it’s never too early to hope, and the stars seem to be lining up, at least among his cabinet nominees.

If Mr. Obama’s team is confirmed, the country will have a homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and a commerce secretary, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who understand the border region and share a well-informed disdain for foolish, inadequate enforcement schemes like the Bush administration’s border fence. And it will have a labor secretary, Hilda Solis of California, who, as a state senator and congresswoman, has built a reputation as a staunch defender of immigrants and workers.

The confluence of immigrants and labor is exactly what this country — particularly, and disastrously, the Bush administration — has not been able to figure out.

In simplest terms, what Ms. Solis and Mr. Obama seem to know in their gut is this: If you uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally, you uphold them for all working Americans.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

Via OhMyGov!

James D. Reid, owner of Consistent Cleaning Service, was fined $22,880 after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees who turned out to be illegal immigrants. Why is this news? Well, because five of these undocumented workers were part of crews who cleaned the home of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff for nearly four years, presenting their identification for screening to the Secret Service each time they returned.

Reid admitted to The Washington Post that he made mistakes, but said the fine was excessively large and may put him out of business. He also raised a common objection among employers: it is unreasonable to expect businesspeople to distinguish between fake and real driver’s licenses and Social Security cards.

Apparently forgeries have gotten so good that even the nation’s top security officers can’t ferret out the fakes.

“Our Homeland Security can’t police their own home,” said Reid. “How can they police our borders?”

A Secret Service spokesman declined to discuss specific screening practices, but did emphasize that the agents use the workers’ IDs to conduct security checks, not immigration checks.

A DHS spokesman said that Chertoff is not to blame for the hiring of illegal immigrants to clean his home. Contractors bear the responsibility of ensuring that their workers are legal and that as soon as Chertoff learned that Reid might have hired illegals, he fired him.

The same defense cannot be made for Lorraine Henderson, the Boston Port Director for the Customs and Border Protection agency - a division of DHS. Henderson was arrested last week for hiring a housekeeper who she knew to be an illegal immigrant. The most damaging evidence is a tape of her telling her cleaning woman, who was cooperating with ICE officials and wearing a wire, that she needed to be “careful’ not to get detected by immigration officials when trying to obtain citizenship documents for her newborn.

These cases illustrate the complexity and the hypocrisy inherent in our current immigration enforcement situation. As long as Americans want cheap labor and immigrants want to make a better life for themselves and their families, illegal immigrants will have a place in America. Comprehensive immigration reform might provide stronger border protections and better tools for determining immigration status of workers, but it will not address the root economic and human issues.

Popularity: 10% [?]

CHICAGO (AFP) — Hispanic leaders urged president-elect Barack Obama to issue a moratorium on immigration raids and deportations at a rally in Chicago Saturday.

“President-elect Barack Obama knows the immigration system is broken and we understand and believe he wants to fix it,” said US Representative Luis Gutierrez.

“We’re ready to create the political support, the grassroots support that (Obama) needs.”

Despite the challenges he faces in dealing with two wars and an economic crisis, it appears as though Obama considers immigration reform a priority, Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez has spoken to Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, four times in the past two weeks and will be meeting with Obama in the coming days to discuss the issue.

“We believe that as we go to the American people and we shatter the myths about our broken immigration system that one of the most powerful symbols we have is the sanctity of marriage … and that government should not be destroying families” separating family members with deportations, Gutierrez said.

The US Congress failed to pass the most recent version of sweeping immigration legislation in 2007, which would have given legal status and a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States.

Obama had been involved in negotiations over the text and immigration reform earned broad support from both Obama and Republican rival John McCain on the 2008 campaign trail.

But in the final months before the election, immigration swiftly took a back seat to the deepening and more pressing economic crisis.

Immigration rights activists are planning a major march on Washington on January 21, the day after Obama is sworn in as the 44th US president, to call attention back to the issue.

Faith leaders across the country are also getting involved and are inviting families torn apart by deportations to speak to their congregations.

“It’s time for a revolution,” pastor Freddy Santiago told 1,500 people gathered at Rebano Companerismo Cristiano church in the heart of a mostly Hispanic Chicago neighborhood.

“Enough is enough! We will not allow our families to be separated or oppressed.”

Yaritza Viveros, 13, sobbed as she spoke to the Chicago rally of her fears that she could come home from school to find her parents snatched in an immigration raid.

Viveros was born in the United States to undocumented parents and is a US citizen.

“I am young, and am against the terror from immigration,” she told the crowd. “Many families are separated because of immigration and we have to stop the raids that destroy our families.”

Brian Wilkins, whose family has lived in the United States for generations, also broke down as he spoke of he was forced to move to Buglaria because his wife and her family were being deported.

He said his father and brother in law are being held in a Wisconsin detention center like “criminals” when all they did wrong was pick bad lawyers.

“We as Americans should be able to have the family we love next to us,” he said. “It’s not just Hispanic people, it’s all people who are being affected. Our broken laws should be fixed.”

Popularity: 100% [?]

By JOHN RILEY, The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Immigrant rights groups, citing huge increases in Latino voter turnout, are claiming credit for helping propel Barack Obama into the White House. Now they want him to follow through on promises to “bring people out of the shadows” by overhauling the U.S. immigration system in his first year as president.

But Mr. Obama is focused on the economic crisis and may not make immigration legislation a priority early in his administration.

“The economy is going to be Obama’s first, second, third, fourth and fifth priority,” said Sean Theriault, an associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin.

The incoming president will enjoy solid Democratic majorities in Congress. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said any immigration legislation would need substantial Republican support. Any proposal could stall in the Senate, where Democrats will probably lack a filibuster-proof majority and could see some party members defect amid concern that reform could be seen as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama promised to provide more manpower and technology to monitor the southern border and major ports of entry. Mr. Obama also said he would work with Mexican officials to promote economic development to curb illegal immigration.

A spokesman from the Obama transition team declined to comment on specific immigration policies.

While Mr. Obama will focus primarily on reviving the economy, he’ll “prove his bona fides” to the immigrant communities he courted during the presidential campaign by tackling immigration as well, said Angela Kelley, executive director of the Immigration Policy Center.

John Amaya, legislative staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he expects the Obama administration to “drop the hammer” on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and be tougher on border security.

Mr. Amaya said overhauling immigration laws is paramount to national security because it would bring illegal workers out of the underground economy and allow the government to keep track of the workers by offering them a path to legalization.

While it is unlikely an immigration overhaul would be approved in Mr. Obama’s first 100 days in office, Ms. Kelley was optimistic that legislation could pass during his first term. She said that as in 2006, there would probably be support in the Senate for a measure to strengthen border security, increase the number of guest-worker visas and allow longtime illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. Two years ago, such a bill passed with the support of 23 Republicans and a significant number of Democrats.

State Rep. Rafael Anchía, a leader on immigration issues in the Texas House, said change in federal policy is essential to solving the labor needs of the country and matching employers to workers. The Dallas Democrat said federal reform could prevent states like Texas from trying to pass laws that can’t fix the underlying system.

“We’re hopeful that progress on the federal front will lessen the desire for precipitous action at the state level,” Mr. Anchía said.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By Anita Kumar, Washington Post

RICHMOND — Virginia, known for some of the nation’s toughest policies on illegal immigration, appears to be abandoning its hard-line approach as state officials consider proposals to help foreign-born residents assimilate, including increasing the number of English classes.

In the coming weeks, the Virginia Commission on Immigration will send Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) two dozen recommendations, most of which would help immigrants instead of penalizing them.

Those on both sides of the issue say interest in immigration has waned because of the growing economic crisis, a clearer understanding of the state’s limitations on a largely federal issue and backlash at the voting booth.

“I think some reality set in,” said state Sen. John C. Watkins (R-Chesterfield), the group’s chairman.

Recommendations include shortening the Medicaid residency requirements for certain qualified immigrants, offering in-state tuition to immigrants who meet specific criteria and creating an immigration assistance office.

The commission considered but did not adopt proposals to force immigrants to carry special identification cards, allow hospitals to fingerprint patients who do not pay their bills and require proof of legal residence to be eligible for public assistance.

Virginia officials have spent years addressing the issue of immigration, taking whatever actions they could within the confines of state and federal law. More recently, immigration turned out to be a less popular election issue than some lawmakers had hoped. As a result, state officials appear to be shifting their focus from fighting illegal immigration to assimilating the ever-growing population of legal immigrants.

Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), who served on the commission and is staunchly anti-illegal immigration, described the panel’s approach to enforcement as “very much watered-down.”

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“I can’t totally disagree that some people are leery of the issue, because maybe it wasn’t the wedge issue that some thought it would be,” Gilbert said.

In recent years, as Congress repeatedly failed to pass immigration legislation, many states considered immigration bills that addressed employment, identification, law enforcement and public benefits.

In Virginia, Republicans and some Democrats in conservative-leaning districts seized on the issue, unveiling proposals to curb illegal immigration and talking up the cause on the campaign trail. Much of the debate was in Northern Virginia, including Prince William County, where officials curtailed government services to illegal immigrants and increased enforcement.

In 2007, a Washington Post poll found that 9 percent of likely voters in Virginia, and 17 percent in Northern Virginia, considered immigration the most important issue facing the state. But this year only 1 percent of likely voters surveyed listed immigration as a top issue.

During the General Assembly’s session this year, the number of immigration bills introduced was the highest in recent years, but most measures died. State and local governments found that they could do little to resolve the issue.

“This is really a federal issue,” Watkins said. “They have . . . pushed it down toward the states, and the time has come for them to deal with it. We have no jurisdiction.”

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, who represents several immigrant groups, attributed the diminishing interest to the realization that Virginia is ahead of other states in dealing with illegal immigration. “I think that Virginia has long been at the forefront in acting in this area,” she said. “Much of the work was done before the commission ever met.”

Virginia was the first state to tighten security on driver’s licenses in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The state acted after it was discovered that several of the Sept. 11 hijackers had Virginia identification. In 2003, the General Assembly passed legislation requiring applicants to provide proof of citizenship or legal presence in the United States, along with proof of Virginia residency.

Gastanaga said the state now needs to focus on creating a welcoming environment and helping immigrants acclimate to the state.

The Immigration Commission spent more than a year writing recommendations for Kaine after public hearings that included expert testimony and comment from legislators and the Virginia Crime Commission. The proposals would have to be adopted by Kaine, the General Assembly or Congress.

The commission proposed increasing the number of English classes and creating a plan to address the needs of foreign-born residents. It also urged the federal government to compile more complete immigration statistics, increase the number of visas for foreign workers and pass comprehensive immigration legislation.

Of the 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the United States, 250,000 to 300,000 live in Virginia, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington. The U.S. Census Bureau says an additional 440,000 people in Virginia are not U.S. citizens but are in the state legally.

The commission was made up of legislators, local government and law enforcement officials, doctors, lawyers and representatives of various immigrant communities. Members were appointed by Kaine and the General Assembly.

Gilbert and another commission member, Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), both advocates of a hard-line approach to illegal immigration, said it was obvious from the start that they would represent the minority view on the panel.

“It was pretty clear the fix was in from the beginning,” Gilbert said.

But the Rev. Gerry Creedon, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington County and a commission member, said that the group was objective and that he was pleased with its “positive direction.”

Creedon said commission members recognized that in the past some immigration proposals were raised for “political purposes” and could not be enforced. “They wanted credit for taking a tough position, but you knew they wouldn’t be implemented,” he said.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Obama’s Justice pick known for work on profiling issues

by Daniel González

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s crackdown on illegal immigrants could get greater scrutiny from federal investigators under President-elect Barack Obama’s administration, criminal-justice experts say.

A telltale clue to that possibility is Obama’s top choice to head the U.S. Justice Department, Eric Holder, who has a track record of investigating the kind of racial-profiling allegations leveled at Arpaio’s crime and immigration sweeps.

Arpaio denies his deputies have stopped or arrested people based on race.

As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder played a key role in the Justice Department’s investigation of the New Jersey state police in the late 1990s that showed officers were disproportionately stopping Blacks for minor traffic stops to look for drugs.

During a Senate subcommittee hearing involving the investigation, Holder, who is an African-American and the son of an immigrant from Barbados, said he had become particularly sensitive to complaints of racial profiling after New Jersey police searched his trunk for guns when he was a college student. He said he believed the incident stemmed from racial profiling.

The Justice Department’s investigation led to New Jersey state police signing a consent decree that required officers to fully document all traffic stops as part of an effort to ensure they weren’t stopping motorists on the basis of race.

The department’s civil-rights division under Democratic President Clinton launched several investigations of local police departments accused of using racial profiling. Such investigations fell dormant under Republican President Bush’s administration.

With Obama, “I expect that the rules will change somewhat and you will probably see a more active role of the Justice Department investigating cases of police misconduct across the board,” said Michael Smith, chairman of the criminology and criminal-justice department at the University of South Carolina.

Allegations

In April, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking that the Justice Department’s civil-rights division and the FBI investigate Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns. He alleged that the sweeps included “a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests.”

Gordon sent the letter after Arpaio moved dozens of deputies into neighborhoods with large Latino populations in Phoenix and Guadalupe to conduct what the sheriff called crime-suppression patrols. The patrols ignited an outcry from Latino community leaders and immigrant advocates, who accused deputies of pulling over people who looked Latino in order to look for illegal immigrants.

Four U.S. citizens and a legal immigrant have filed a lawsuit against Arpaio, accusing him and deputies of violating their civil rights in connection with the immigration crackdowns.

An Arizona Republic examination of arrest logs from eight crime sweeps showed that deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos during each of the operations; that even when the patrols were held in mostly White areas deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos; and that deputies arrested Latinos in greater numbers than non-Latinos following minor traffic violations.

Gordon said he believes that under the Obama administration, the Justice Department will take a harder look at the concerns raised in his letter.

“The ball for civil rights has started rolling, and I’m confident that under soon-to-be Attorney General Holder, it will be rolling faster here and across the nation,” Gordon said.

Hector Yturralde, president of Somos America, an immigrant-advocacy group that is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said he expects the Justice Department to pay more attention to complaints of racial profiling against Arpaio’s department.

“We do have high aspirations of this new attorney general because something has to be done. So far our cries have fallen on deaf ears,” Yturralde said.

Arpaio said he is not concerned that his office could face greater scrutiny under the Obama administration.

“I don’t care,” Arpaio said. “I feel very comfortable with the way we do things. . . . I have confidence in my deputies, and nothing is going to change. I am going to continue my operations even though the administration is going to change.”

Scot Montrey, a spokesman for the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, said the allegations of racial profiling against Arpaio’s office were being reviewed to determine whether any action should be taken.

Arpaio said he doesn’t believe the Justice Department is looking any further into Gordon’s letter because the complaints have no merit.

“It hasn’t gone anywhere because there is nothing to it,” Arpaio said.

Brian Withrow, a criminal-justice professor at Wichita State University, said that earlier this month he attended a national conference of the American Society of Criminology in St. Louis.

“The consensus of that group was that we will see more of a desire of this new administration to litigate these (racial profiling) cases than the current administration,” Withrow said. “The president-elect has already said he intends to beef up the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice, and that is the department most likely to investigate.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

By PETER APPLEBOME, The New York Times

Over the years, the immigration issue has been very, very good to Steve Levy, Suffolk County’s suddenly embattled county executive.

Beginning with his support of an English-only proposal two decades ago, to a number of high-profile initiatives he’s pushed since he was elected county executive in 2003, Mr. Levy has become hugely popular locally and a national figure as a proponent of measures meant to crack down on illegal immigration.

Now, in the wake of the killing of an Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, by what the police said was as a group of seven teenagers intent on finding “a Mexican” to attack, and Mr. Levy’s widely criticized comments after the death, the picture is decidedly more mixed. (In response to a question whether the episode was unique to Suffolk County, Mr. Levy said that that the killing would have been a one-day story elsewhere.)

But when he delivered a televised speech to Suffolk County residents on Tuesday, expressing regret and horror, holding his ground and taking a step or two back at the same time, he did manage to evoke both a local tragedy and a national quandary. Can you crusade against illegal immigration and not be accused of playing to fear and prejudice?

Given the polarized and angry debate in the county, it’s fair to say Mr. Levy hasn’t pulled it off. Whether anyone can do better is no small issue in American life.

“We all stand united, and speak loudly with one voice, when we say that the brutal killing of this innocent, hard-working man for no other reason than he was Hispanic is a dark and reprehensible moment for our county,” he said in his speech.

That stain, he added pointedly, is particularly shameful on Long Island, which, he said, a study has shown to be among the most segregated areas in America.

But he denied there was a link between the heated debates over immigration in the county and the crime. “Opposition to the policy of illegal immigration must never allow individuals to justify acts of violence,” he said. “Likewise, advocates for those here illegally should not disparage those opposed to the illegal immigration policy as being bigoted or intolerant.”

But, in fact, Hispanic officials and advocates for years have depicted Mr. Levy as a bullying figure, making hay out of an issue that’s popular with many white residents even though the county has very little role in enforcing immigration laws.

Phil Ramos, a state assemblyman, and Ricardo Montano, a county legislator, said Mr. Levy’s comments and policies had contributed to an atmosphere in which attacks and harassment of Hispanics are common.

“The constant rhetoric coming from some elected officials has the impact of creating an atmosphere in which a crime like this can occur,” Mr. Ramos said. “We need mature leadership in this county that doesn’t pander to the worst qualities in our residents.”

Michael D. Dawidziak, a political consultant who has worked for Mr. Levy, said he doesn’t agree with Mr. Levy on every issue, but he said it’s very hard to find any statements or policies by Mr. Levy that are beyond the norm for the immigration debate.

And Mr. Levy said that in the end, a horrible crime and his own policy prescriptions have nothing in common. “The reason so few officials will touch this issue is because it’s a lightning rod, and they can get burned and demonized very easily,” he said. “But reasonable people can disagree on the issue of illegal immigration.”

Of course, the lightning rod works both ways, and for a politician who takes pride in discerning the gut of the electorate, the issue has worked for him far more than against him, helping Mr. Levy, a Democrat, win votes in reliably Republican areas.

Critics say if he wants to change the tone, one place to start would be to find a way for victims to report crimes and for the police to aggressively register hate crimes against Hispanics. According to official figures, such crimes decreased to one in 2007 from 15 in 2004.

It takes about five minutes of speaking to immigrant workers to realize there is more than one anti-Hispanic hate crime a year in Suffolk County.

Mr. Levy said his most notorious statement, seeming to complain about the widespread news coverage the killing received, was a comment on the attention given to immigration issues in Suffolk, not an attempt to minimize the crime. In his speech, he said he needed to do better.

“Hopefully, Marcelo Lucero’s death will not be in vain. Perhaps it can be the spark for all of us — yours truly included — to admit our faults, to work more closely with one another, to pay more attention to what our children are doing, and to pay more attention to what we say,” he said. “Words do matter, and I will do all I can to help ensure that my words are as sensitive as possible toward meeting our goal to heal and to unite.”

Critics say that’s a start, but just a start.

“I’ve known Mr. Levy for many years, and I judge him on his actions, not just his words in one speech,” Mr. Montano said. “I welcome his comments, but he’ll be judged on his future words, deeds and actions, not on one speech.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

President-elect Barack Obama’s attention on the nation’s economic problems and the war in Iraq should not divert him from getting a comprehensive immigration reform package through Congress and signed into law during his first year in office.

The system is broken, and delaying a solution will only make the divisive issue that much more difficult to fix.

Obama must be a leader on immigration reform, especially pushing his party on the issue in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate.

President George W. Bush backed a reasonable immigration reform plan, but it was killed in the U.S. Senate in 2007 by members of his own party, as well as Democrats. Obama must use his political capital early to build on Bush’s work on immigration reform.

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Popularity: 7% [?]

Before a huge crowd in San Diego last summer, Barack Obama vowed to make fixing illegal immigration a top priority as president, and Latinos nationwide responded with massive support for him on Election Day. Now, they are pressing him to keep his promise.

“We voted in large numbers for Obama,” said Juan Salgado, board president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a nonprofit based in Chicago, Obama’s training ground for immigration issues when he was a senator. “If we’re sitting here two and a half years from now and absolutely nothing’s been done, people are going to start asking questions.”

From Cape Cod to California, activists on both sides of the volatile issue are girding for battle. Supporters of the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants - most of whom are Latino - want Obama to press for a path to legal residency for them. Opponents say reform is impossible at a time when unemployment is soaring, and instead want tougher border security and less immigration to preserve Americans’ jobs.

Many analysts are skeptical that Oba ma can navigate the political minefield of illegal immigration in his first year

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Popularity: 11% [?]

By ADAM LIPTAK, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors pursuing illegal immigrants have a favorite tool: a 2004 law that imposes a mandatory two-year prison sentence on some people who commit identity fraud. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide just how blunt that instrument is.

The question in the case, one that has divided the federal appeals courts, is whether workers who use false Social Security and alien registration numbers must know that they belong to a real person to be subject to a two-year sentence extension for “aggravated identity theft.” Put another way: Is it identity theft to pick nine random numbers out of the air and submit them as a Social Security number if that number turns out to belong to a real person?

In the case the court agreed to hear on Monday, Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican citizen, used a counterfeit Social Security card bearing his real name and a false Social Security number to get work at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. Though he did not know it, the number belonged to a real person, a minor.

The 2004 law makes it a crime to use knowingly, “without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person” in connection with a variety of other offenses. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, affirmed Mr. Flores-Figueroa’s conviction, saying that the government needed to prove only a knowing use of false information and not that the defendant knew the fake number belonged to a real person.

Two federal appeals courts — in Richmond, Va., and Atlanta — have agreed with the Eighth Circuit’s interpretation. Three — in Boston, San Francisco and Washington — have disagreed. They said prosecutors must prove the defendant knew the fake number belonged to someone else.

Knowledge requirements often give rise to difficult issues in interpreting criminal statutes. In a 1985 case, quoting a treatise on criminal law, the Supreme Court summed up the problem this way: “It is not at all clear how far down the sentence the word ‘knowingly’ is intended to travel.”

Kevin R. Johnson, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis, and an authority on immigration law, said the Supreme Court’s decision in the case, Flores-Figueroa v. United States, No. 08-108, is likely to have a big impact.

“This is the tool that the federal government has been using in the recent raid cases,” Professor Johnson said. Many of the illegal immigrants swept up in a raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, for instance, were offered a choice between pleading guilty to a lesser charge, resulting in five months in prison, followed by deportation without appearing before an immigration judge, or the possibility of a two-year mandatory sentence under the 2004 law.

“It’s given the federal government a huge lever,” Professor Johnson said of the law.

Also on Monday, the court turned down an appeal in a capital case, Walker v. Georgia, No. 08-5385. In the process, it prompted a debate between Justices John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas.

Though Justice Stevens agreed that the court should not have heard the case, he wrote that it pointed to an important issue. State courts, he said, have an obligation to review capital cases to make sure that death sentences are not being imposed arbitrarily.

To do this, he said, courts must compare the murders that gave rise to death sentences with how similar murders were treated. Lawyers call this “proportionality review.”

Justice Stevens criticized the Georgia Supreme Court for conducting “an utterly perfunctory review” in the case of Artemus R. Walker, who had been convicted of luring a man from his home, killing him for money and then trying to break into the home, where the man’s wife and daughter were. The court, he said, had considered only other cases in which the death penalty had been imposed to satisfy itself that the death sentence was warranted.

Justice Stevens said United States Supreme Court precedents required a broader comparison, one that includes cases in which juries had imposed life sentences and cases in which prosecutors had not sought death in the first place.

Justice Thomas, who also voted to deny the appeal, said Justice Stevens had misread the court’s own cases. “Proportionality review is not constitutionally required in any form,” he wrote. Indeed, he said, the Georgia court had applied the United States Supreme Court’s decisions “faithfully and without error.”

Popularity: 23% [?]