Friday Roundup: Hope for Holder?

by Matt Kelley

Published November 21, 2008 @ 10:32AM PST

The chatter continues about potential Obama Attorney General pick Eric Holder, and there's some hope he'll be a good choice. Jeff Rosen at the The New Republic and Doug Berman at Sentencing Law & Policy say Holder's tough-on-crime credibility might be the best wedge to get smart-on-crime reforms passed.

Students at Northwestern used the timing of a 1978 Mohammad Ali fight to present some pretty convincing evidence that an Illinois man was wrongfully convicted three decades ago.

Texas conducted its 18th execution of the year last night. Kentucky is set to execute Marco Allen Chapman tonight. Chapman voluntarily dropped his appeals, and his lawyer called it the toughest moment of his career. There have been 35 executions so far this year, with six more scheduled, so 2008 will continue the steady year-over-year decline in executions. There were 42 executions in 2007. (Of course, there was a moratorium for part of '07 and '08, so we'll see what '09 holds)

The MySpace suicide trial continues. A family friend told the jury that Lori Drew, who is accused of using a fake MySpace profile to "inflict emotional distress" on a teenage friend of her daughter's, thought the gag was funny.

And, from the Onion, the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision this week to uphold the bill of rights.