“California chief justice urges reevaluating death penalty; Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, one of the high court’s more conservative members, says the death penalty is no longer working for the state”: In today’s edition of The Los Angeles Times, Maura Dolan has an article that begins, “Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who heads the state’s judicial branch and its highest court, said in an interview that the death penalty is no longer effective in California and suggested she would welcome a public debate on its merits and costs.”

“New Pro Bono Case on Whether First Amendment Libel Rules Are Limited to Institutional Media Defendants”: Eugene Volokh has this post at “The Volokh Conspiracy.”

My earlier coverage of this case appears here and here.

“John Lawrence, Plaintiff in Gay Rights Case, Dies at 68”: Adam Liptak has written this obituary published today in The New York Times.