After more than a decade of rumors and innuendo, "DNA tests have reportedly cleared the family of JonBenet Ramsey of involvement in the 6-year-old Colorado beauty queen's murder in 1996." Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy said the tests point to an 'unexplained third party' and that prosecutors don't consider any member of the Ramsey family a suspect. The DA also apologized in a letter to the girl's father, John Ramsey, for any role that her office may have played in contributing to "the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime." The Associated Press, TalkLeft and Crime and Consequences have more.
Although the State of Vermont has not sentenced anyone to death in more than 50 years, the man charged with abducting a 12-year-old girl "could become the second Vermonter to end up on federal death row in recent years." Vermont Law School professor Michael Mello, who is an expert on the death penalty, noted it could be the first time federal prosecutors seek the death penalty using changes to federal law included in the Adam Walsh Act of 2006. According to Mello, "[w]hat the Adam Walsh amendment was intended to do, in effect, is to make virtually any kidnapping with death resulting a federal capital offense." Federal prosecutors allege that the girl's uncle is responsible for the abduction.
Wisconsin necrophiliacs beware, the state Supreme court held today that the state's rape law bans sex with dead bodies. According to the majority opinion, "a reasonably well-informed person would understand the statute to prohibit sexual intercourse with a dead person." Two dissenting justices said the law was intended not to ban necrophilia but to permit rape charges when the victim was also murdered. An attorney for one of the defendants' notes that the charges have yet to be proven. For more, see the Associated Press article. If the subject weren't so completely distasteful, the fact pattern would present a nice Criminal Law exam question illustrating differing approaches to statutory interpretation.
The National Review has several new editorials online concerning the recent Kennedy decision. One by Andrew C. McCarthy is entitled: Some Evolution: The fraudulent 'consensus' behind the Supreme Court's child-rape ruling. Another by Anthony Dick is entitled: Constitutional Torture: Standard judicial malpractice.
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