Supreme Court: NO patents on human genes

Thank you, justices!

The U.S. Supreme Court says human genes cannot be patented.

The Creator is not interested in patents and trademarks on His people, and only HE has that right. 

Go sit yourself down somewhere, Myriad Genetics, Inc. The answer is NO.

ACLU agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court.
http://youtu.be/Wj_Y14cMCFQ



Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-human-genes-cannot-be-patented/2013/06/13/f7681b22-d436-11e2-b3a2-3bf5eb37b9d0_story.html

In the beginning, GOD created heaven and earth . . . God said, Let us make man in our image (Genesis).

Maryland's Legal Victory: Goodbye, DP!

The State of Maryland repealed capital punishment! The ceremony during which Governor O'Malley signed the repeal was attended by Kirk Bloodsworth, a one-time Maryland death row inmate who was the first person in the United States freed by DNA evidence. The repeal does not affect the fates of five people on Maryland's death row, but the governor can commute their sentences to life without parole. Maryland is the 18th state to end capital punishment and the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to do so.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/us/maryland-death-penalty

A day after Gov. Martin O’Malley signed a bill to repeal the death penalty in Maryland, opponents of the measure announced a petition drive to allow voters to overturn the law in 2014. The law repealing Maryland's death penalty will take effect as scheduled on October 1 after opponents failed to collect enough signatures to put the issue to a statewide vote. MDPetitions.com, the group that helped put same-sex marriage and two other issues on last year’s ballot, confirmed at a May 31, 2013 afternoon news conference that it was unable to replicate its success. Facing a midnight deadline to submit an initial batch of signatures, the group instead ended its effort.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-31/local/39650216_1_death-penalty-repeal-signatures-mdpetitions-com

Below is an excerpt from an article dated October 21, 2011:

How many countries have the death penalty?
Capital punishment laws are on the books in 91 countries, but only 23 of them carried out any executions last year. The U.S. executed 46 people last year, and 37 so far this year — more than any other country, except for the dictatorships of China, North Korea, Iran, and Yemen. In most parts of the modern world, the practice appears to be in steep decline. Since 1976, a total of 123 countries have effectively abolished the death penalty as a barbaric legacy of the past. All signs point to an unmistakable downward trend, says Mario Marazziti, co-founder of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. "There is worldwide growth of a new moral standard of decency and of respect for human rights," he said, "even the rights and lives of those who may have committed severe crimes."

http://theweek.com/article/index/220497/the-death-penalty-in-decline

Hopefully, more states south of the Mason-Dixon line will follow Maryland's lead. Southern states cling to the death penalty even though the public is turning against DP for the following reasons:

~ It targets the poor
~ It is racist
~ It kills the innocent
~ It does not deter crime
~ It is barbaric
~ It is expensive (up to an additional $90,000 per year per condemned inmate)

Message to my pro-DP brothers and sisters in Christ: You misrepresent Jesus Christ, and I certainly hope you do not want to do that. Prisoners are either saved people who have been granted God's forgiveness, or they are unsaved people who are eligible for God's forgiveness. Please listen to and share this audiotape - MaryLovesJustice Show Tape 1 "End DP in Bible Belt States" at this TalkShoe link http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=621240&cmd=apop . After the first 45 minutes, there is a two-minute pause inserted by cyberstalkers, then the tape continues for another hour. I trust that you will prayerfully reconsider capital punishment. All have sinned and come short of God's glory, but "THERE IS A FOUNTAIN" http://youtu.be/IaGKfCh7OBo . Thank you.

Congratulations to Governor Martin O'Malley and the Maryland State Legislature for freeing your citizens of the financial burden and moral sin of executions.

Repeat of paragraph 1: The State of Maryland repealed capital punishment! The ceremony during which Governor O'Malley signed the repeal was attended by Kirk Bloodsworth, a one-time Maryland death row inmate who was the first person in the United States freed by DNA evidence. The repeal does not affect the fates of five people on Maryland's death row, but the governor can commute their sentences to life without parole. Maryland is the 18th state to end capital punishment and the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to do so.  http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/us/maryland-death-penalty

Supreme Court: Legal Victories for Condemned Inmates

US Supreme Court orders 6 death row cases reviewed

HOUSTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [June 3, 2013] sent the cases of six Texas death row inmates, including one of the infamous "Texas 7" gang of escapees, back to a lower court for reviews of whether attorneys in earlier stages of appeals let the men down.

The decisions are in line with last week's ruling in another Texas case where the justices, in a 5-4 vote, said a condemned prisoner had deficient legal help early because appeals lawyers didn't raise challenges that his trial lawyers were ineffective.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/03/3430729/us-supreme-court-orders-6-death.html#storylink=cpy

It is probably a dream come true for the six condemned people to have their cases reviewed before being eligible for execution. Many defendants who must depend on overworked public defenders operating on small budgets to defend the nation's indigent people are represented by ineffective counsel. In fact, so much can happen in a criminal case to cause wrongful convictions before and during the court process that wrongful convictions are bound to happen from time to time. However, wrongful executions should never happen, and they would be impossible if every state does what Maryland recently did:

SAY DEATH TO THE DEATH PENALTY!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/03/3430729/us-supreme-court-orders-6-death.html#storylink=cpy

Supreme Court Delivers a Legal Victory re habeas corpus

Congratulations to the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that a prisoner who presents credible evidence of his innocence can overcome a procedural barrier that he waited too long to go to court. See below an excerpt from my article, "How Important is Innocence in Criminal Justice?"

Unfortunately, many judges and district attorneys do not view innocence as being relevant in handing down or upholding prison sentences or even executions. Read the views expressed by Supreme Court justices in the High Court's ruling granting Troy Davis a post-conviction hearing before a Georgia federal judge on August 17, 2009. The purpose of the hearing was to determine if Davis would be granted a new trial-by-jury.
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“'The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing,' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.

But Antonin Scalia, joined in the minority by Clarence Thomas, was unconvinced and unmoved.

'This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.'”

Scalia’s fellow justices noted that his position allows no legal avenue for even an obviously innocent person to have his or her case heard.
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It is good that some Supreme Court justices have qualms about imprisoning and executing people who are "actually innocent" without a post-conviction hearing during which the inmate may present credible evidence of actual innocence. 

There are judges and prosecutors across the country who feel it is perfectly acceptable to imprison and even execute innocent people as long as the accused parties had their day in court. They entirely miss the point that the judicial process is intended to discover the truth of a matter and bring justice. Justice is never served by ignoring evidence of a convicted person's innocence because it arrived late or because reversing a wrongful conviction would be inconvenient to a prosecutor's career, costly to prison profiteers, or burdensome to the court process.

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling may help many inmates who are beyond the deadline for filing a petition for habeas corpus. "A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee before the court to determine if the person's imprisonment or detention is lawful. In the US system, federal courts can use the writ of habeas corpus to determine if a state's detention of a prisoner is valid. A habeas petition proceeds as a civil action against the State agent (usually a warden) who holds the defendant in custody" (Cornell Univ. Law School).

Wikipedia reports, "In 1996, following the Oklahoma City bombing, Congress passed (91–8–1 in the Senate, 293–133–7 in the House) and President Clinton signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The AEDPA was intended to "deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes." The AEDPA introduced one of the few limitations on habeas corpus. For the first time, its Section 101 set a statute of limitations of one year following conviction for prisoners to seek the writ. The Act limits the power of federal judges to grant relief unless the state court's adjudication of the claim has resulted in a decision that

~Is contrary to, or has involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or

~Has resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding.

It generally, but not absolutely, barred second or successive petitions, with several exceptions. Petitioners who had already filed a federal habeas petition were required first to secure authorization from the appropriate United States Court of Appeals, to ensure that such an exception was at least facially made out."

Read about the U.S. Supreme Court delivering this legal victory to the American People at the Washington Post article, "Supreme Court Gives Inmates More Leeway to Challenge Convictions," dated May 28, 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-gives-inmates-more-leeway-to-challenge-convictions/2013/05/28/f144e6a0-c7aa-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

The time ALWAYS right time to do the right thing. ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Repeat of Paragraph 1: Congratulations to the U.S. Supreme Court, which recently ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that a prisoner who presents credible evidence of his innocence can overcome a procedural barrier that he waited too long to go to court. See [above] an excerpt from my article, "How Important is Innocence in Criminal Justice?"