The Northern District of California has begun its first federal capital trials in over 60 years. Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle reports that one of the two N.D. Cal. death penalty trials was abruptly recessed, which some believe is to permit Obama's new Attorney General Eric Holder to take a second look at former AG Michael Mukasey's decision to overrule the U.S. Attorney's 40-year plea agreement for one of the two capital defendants facing trial. The Chronicle has this to say about Holder's death penalty views:
In a 1997 Senate confirmation hearing to become deputy attorney general under Clinton, Holder said he opposed the death penalty but would "enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us." While serving in that position, Holder said in 2000 that he was "personally and professionally disturbed" by a Justice Department report showing that racial minorities were defendants in 80 percent of the death penalty prosecutions sought by local U.S. attorneys.
In the EDCA, a decision on whether the United States will seek the death penalty is expected by April 9, 2009 in the two-defendant Atwater prison guard killing case, U.S. v. Sablan & Guerrero, which is pending before Judge Wanger in Fresno.