Calif. shooting prompts action
Calif. shooting prompts action
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Tuesday proposed expanded restraining orders and new law enforcement procedures to deter the type of violent rampages that left six young people dead over the weekend near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Two Assembly members proposed legislation that would create a gun violence restraining order that could be sought from a judge by law enforcement at the request of family members and friends.
“When someone is in crisis, the people closest to them are often the first to spot the warning signs but almost nothing can now be done to get back their guns or prevent them from buying more,” said Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner of Berkeley, who sponsored the measure with Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara.
Currently, therapists can tell authorities when they fear a client is at risk of committing a violent act. However, there is no prohibition on firearms ownership unless someone has been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.
Another proposal involves establishing statewide protocols for law enforcement officers who are called to check on mentally troubled people.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, suggested that authorities should be required as part of such welfare visits to check whether a person has purchased weapons instead of just talking to them.
S&P 500 rises for 4th-straight day
NEW YORK (AP) — More promising signs that the economy is strengthening after its winter slowdown pushed stocks higher on Tuesday.
The Standard &Poor’s 500 index rose for the fourth straight day and ended at another all-time high. It closed above 1,900 for the first time on Friday. Small-company stocks and other riskier parts of the market, like Internet and biotechnology companies, also gained after being beaten down over the past few months.
The government reported that orders to U.S. factories for long-lasting manufactured goods rose unexpectedly in April, powered by a surge in demand for military aircraft. Also, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose in May to the second-highest level since January 2008, just after the start of the Great Recession.
The Standard &Poor’s 500 index rose 11.38 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,911.91. The stock market was closed Monday for Memorial Day.
First lady defends healthy lunches
WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama is striking back at House Republicans who are trying to weaken healthier school meal standards, saying any effort to roll back the guidelines is “unacceptable.”
The rules set by Congress and the administration over the last several years require more fruits, vegetables and whole grains in the lunch line and set limits on sodium, sugar and fat. The first lady met Tuesday with school nutrition officials who said the guidelines are working in their schools.
The event was an unusual move for the first lady, who has largely stayed away from policy fights since she lobbied for congressional passage of a child nutrition law in 2010.
“The last thing we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids’ health,” Obama told participants.
An agriculture spending bill approved by a House subcommittee last week would allow schools to waive the standards if they have a net loss on school food programs for a six-month period.
Court ruling on death row, IQ
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twelve years after barring execution of the mentally disabled, the Supreme Court on Tuesday prohibited states in borderline cases from relying only on intelligence test scores to determine whether a death row inmate is eligible to be executed.
In a 5-4 decision that split the court’s liberal and conservative justices, the court said that Florida and a handful of other states must look beyond IQ scores when inmates test in the range of 70 to 75. IQ tests have a margin of error, and those inmates whose scores fall within the margin must be allowed to present other evidence of mental disability, Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion.
A score of 70 is widely accepted as a marker of mental disability, but medical professionals say people who score as high as 75 can be considered intellectually disabled.
because of the test’s margin of error.
In 2002, the court said that executing mentally disabled inmates violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But until Tuesday, the justices left to the states the determination of who is mentally disabled.
Kennedy said the finality of capital punishment requires giving inmates the chance to present evidence of mental disability in borderline cases.
“The states are laboratories for experimentation, but those experiments may not deny the basic dignity the Constitution protects,” Kennedy said in an opinion that was joined by the court’s four more liberal justices.
At most, eight other states employ a similar cutoff of 70, Kennedy said. He listed those states as: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington. Kansas has not executed anyone in nearly 50 years and Washington recently suspended its death penalty, he said.
In dissent for the four justices to the right of Kennedy, Justice Samuel Alito said the court has no evidence that relying on test scores just above 70 is unreasonable and so should not be held unconstitutional.
Tuesday’s decision came in the case of 68-year-old Freddie Lee Hall. Lawyers for Hall said there is ample evidence to show that he is mentally disabled, even though most of his multiple IQ tests have yielded scores topping 70. Hall has been on death row for more than 35 years since being convicted of murdering a pregnant 21-year-old woman in 1978.
In nine tests administered between 1968 and 2008, Hall scored as low as 60 and as high as 80, with his most recent scores between 69 and 74, according to the state.
A judge in an earlier phase of the case concluded Hall “had been mentally retarded his entire life.” Psychiatrists and other medical professionals who examined him said he is mentally disabled.
As far back as the 1950s, Hall was considered “mentally retarded” — then the commonly accepted term for mental disability — according to school records submitted to the Supreme Court.
“Freddie Lee Hall may or may not be intellectually disabled, but the law requires that he have the opportunity to present evidence of his intellectual disability, including deficits in adaptive functioning over his lifetime,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy relied on legal briefs filed by psychiatrists and psychologists who supported Hall to undergird his opinion. Beyond the test score, the groups said there’s a consensus among the mental health professions that an accurate diagnosis also must include evaluating an individual’s ability to function in society, along with finding that the mental disability began in childhood.
Alito called Kennedy’s reliance misplaced. In earlier death penalty cases, Alito noted that the court took account of changing standards in American society to bolster decisions limiting executions. “Now, however, the court strikes down a state law based on the evolving standards of professional societies,” Alito said.
The case is Hall v. Florida, 12-10882.