A bit of good-ish, encouraging news from out of an otherwise horrible year, from this week’s New York Times…
There were other important death penalty developments last year: the number of death sentences continued to fall, Ohio switched to a single chemical for lethal injections and New Mexico repealed its death penalty entirely. But not one of them was as significant as the institute’s move, which represents a tectonic shift in legal theory.
“The A.L.I. is important on a lot of topics,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “They were absolutely singular on this topic” — capital punishment — “because they were the only intellectually respectable support for the death penalty system in the United States.”
…
“It’s very bad news for the continued legitimacy of the death penalty,” Professor Zimring said.
Did someone open a can of spam here ?
[ed note: Patience. Patience. I never fail to open a can of whuppass on spammers. 😛 —99]
The death penalty…
What a practice for an enlightened so called Christian nation…
Well maybe not so enlightened…and the Christian thing isn’t panning out well for the country either…
I’ll revise…
The death penalty…the perfect metaphor for America….
All lawmakers and policy makers should be required to read “Ultimate Punishment” by author, attorney, former prosecutor Scott Turow.
I read it. From Wikipedia:
There have been several death penalties overturned in my home state. The justice system is not fair, so we have to decide – do we risk putting some innocent people to death or not?