IOWA CITY, Iowa - The death of the U.S. Supreme Court's most consistent conservative voice for 30 years, Justice Antonin Scalia, leaves a crucial vacancy on the court.

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, where hearings on any nominee would be held.

Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, say the seat should remain open for the next president to make the key appointment, but President Obama says he'll nominate a new justice and expects no delay in ratifying the choice.

University of Iowa law professor Todd Pettys says there may be legal justification for the Republicans' stall tactics.

"The Constitution doesn't say anything directly about what the Senate's obligation is to respond promptly," says Pettys. "It doesn't say anything that clearly forbids the Senate from just refusing to act on a president's nomination. And they're free to take politics into account."

He says typically, when the president and Senate majority are from the same political party, the confirmation process can take as little as three or four months. Even when the fight is contentious, as was the case when President Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork in 1987, a new justice is typically seated in less than a year.

Pettys says fights over Supreme Court appointments are relatively recent, dating back only 50 years. Should the GOP not confirm a new justice until next year, he says many close cases won't be decided for some time.

"We're looking at the prospect of something very rare here, because if the Republicans refuse to process President Obama's nominee, it's going to be beyond this time next year before we have that seat filled," says Pettys. "We're talking about possibly a year-and-a-half of work on the court that is affected, in high-profile, closely-divided cases."

He says several pending cases may end up with tie votes, in which case the lower-court decisions remain in effect. He also predicts that a prolonged delay in selecting a new justice could mean fewer appeals in close cases, as litigants won't want to spend the time and resources, only to have the court fail to render a decision.

Pettys thinks Scalia will go down in history as one of the most influential justices of all time.

"Whether someone agrees with him or disagrees with him, you have to see that he has been just highly, highly influential," Pettys says. "He has changed the way the court thinks about many issues. He has changed the way the court thinks about the methodologies that it uses for deciding different cases."

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has ordered flags on public buildings in Iowa to be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset today in Scalia's honor.


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A package to improve public safety is moving ahead in the California state Legislature - with a floor vote in the State Assembly on the first bill expected this week.

Assembly Bill 2215 puts into statute that police officers have the discretion to send people arrested for low-level offenses directly to supportive services.

Anthony DiMartino - government affairs director with the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice - said sometimes public safety is best served when people avoid arrest and instead get therapy, addiction support or help getting a job.

"We're also hoping to raise awareness that this is something officers can do, and then also encourage partnerships more with officers to look at what's in their community," said DiMartino, "as alternatives to jail booking."

A second bill would increase transparency and accountability on money sent to the counties as part of the Public Safety Realignment.

A third bill would require police officers, prosecuting attorneys and investigators to identify themselves any time they're interviewing a family member of someone killed or severely injured by police.

DiMartino said they also support AB 2499, which would ensure that survivors of violent crime and their family members can take unpaid time off work to address safety concerns and heal.

"We're hoping to broaden the scope a bit," said DiMartino, "and make it more clear that family members of victims are able to also tap into unpaid leave to support their family member that has been a victim."

A fifth bill would make it easier for justice-involved people and crime victims to speak freely during restorative justice programs - by making the communications inadmissible in other legal proceedings.

Missouri went through with its first execution of the year, as Brian Dorsey was put to death last night, just after 6 p.m. CT.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to stop Dorsey's execution. He was convicted of murdering his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben nearly 20 years ago.

The advocacy group Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty launched several recent campaigns on Dorsey's behalf to spare his life.

Jenni Gerhauser, a cousin to both Dorsey and Sarah Bonnie, expressed belief in his redemption.

"Brian is more than the worst moment of his life," Gerhauser stressed. "There is so much more to him."

Gerhauser fondly remembered him as fun and charming from their visits during holidays. Dorsey's current lawyers said he was in a drug-induced psychosis when he killed the Bonnies in 2006 and his attorneys at the time had been offered money, preventing them from fighting the death penalty with his guilty plea deal.

Gov. Mike Parson confirmed Monday the state would move forward with Dorsey's death sentence, rejecting a separate request for clemency. More than 70 current and former corrections officers had urged the governor to commute Dorsey's sentence, arguing he had been rehabilitated.

Claudia Boyce, also a cousin in the family, said it should not be a decision for the state to make.

"You know, that's supposed to be God's decision, not ours," Boyce contended.

Dorsey received a lethal injection Tuesday evening. Lethal injection became an option for people on Missouri's death row in 1987, alongside lethal gas.


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Amid overcrowding and unsafe conditions in West Virginia jails, state lawmakers introduced bills that would allow judges to take a 'second look' at an individual's original sentence.

If a court determines they no longer pose a threat to the community, the person could be released, placed on supervision, or receive a shortened sentence.

Sara Whitaker - criminal legal policy analyst with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy - said West Virginia is one of the few states that has seen its prison population balloon over the past decade, despite declining crime.

She noted that as of last month, more than 500 people in the state were in jail awaiting transfer to a prison.

"As a result, eight out of 10 of the regional jails in the state were beyond capacity," said Whitaker, "with hundreds of people assigned to sleeping on the floor."

The bills failed to advance this session, but Whitaker said advocates are hopeful lawmakers will consider them next year.

The state's jails remain among the deadliest in the country, with at least 91 people losing their lives while incarcerated in the past few years.

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, jail bills cost counties $45 million in 2022.

Nationwide, long sentences have led to growth in the number of older people behind bars.

Whitaker pointed out that 'Second Look' legislation could help the state avoid turning its prisons into nursing homes, and said the number of elderly people in prison has tripled in the past two decades.

"In 2019, West Virginia had to open a dementia unit in one of its prisons," said Whitaker. "There are hospice units across multiple prisons. And experts predict that this is just only going to get worse."

Whitaker added that 'Second Look' policies also offer a way to correct past racial injustice in the criminal legal system.

Black people incarcerated in West Virginia are four times more likely than white people to be serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and five times as likely to be serving a life-without-parole sentence.




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