The California Supreme Court issued two death penalty opinions today.
In one of those cases, it unanimously affirmed the re-imposition of a death sentence after a prior reversal. The underlying facts of that murder, which occurred in 1998, are so graphically horrific that I will say no more about it.
In the other case, the Court reversed (yet again) a death sentence that it had previously conditionally reversed for a determination of whether the defendant was competent when he represented himself at trial. As a result of today's opinion -- which involved only competence issues, not didn't involve the underlying events, so there's nothing about the actual crime -- the defendant will get a full retrial (assuming that he's now competent to stand trial). Presumably with an actual lawyer.
Though the funny part is that according to the California Department of Corrections, the defendant is now . . . 73 years old. Putting a 73-year old on trial for murder; in a death penalty case, no less.
You don't see that every day.
