Just came down the wire. Coincidentally [or perhaps not], I tuned in for a little schadenfreude this morning, and after the Scott Brown victory, they were in particularly miserable form.

Details here. R.I.P., if that means it stays dead.

I must get back to billable work so I won’t comment beyond recommending this interesting article on why we should abolish the death penalty. (Scroll down to the “On the Square” section).  I don’t agree with the article but it is well written and thought provoking.

The Vatican has apparently spoken out against executing Saddam.  My question is this:  Isn’t it possible that executing Saddam is consistent with Church teaching?  The Catechism provides:

Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities that the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (Evangelium Vitae 56).
Saddam poses a threat, that in my mind cannot be removed by mere incarceration, because of the realistic threat of a civil war which would put Saddam back in charge, and we know what he did last time his life was threatened.  The “state” of Iraq in no way compares to the United States, or other well-established states, where imprisonment is a realistic guarantee of self-defense.  Hanging may be necessary for the common good, in this rare circumstance.

From his recent opinion in Kansas v. Marsh….

…. There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America’s death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society. (I say sanctimonious, because most of the countries to which these finger-waggers belong had the death penalty themselves until recently–and indeed, many of them would still have it if the democratic will prevailed.³) It is a certainty that the opinion of a near-majority of the United States Supreme Court to the effect that our system condemns many innocent defendants to death will be trumpeted abroad as vindication of these criticisms. For that reason, I take the trouble to point out that the dissenting opinion has nothing substantial to support it.

It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case–not one–in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby. The dissent makes much of the new-found capacity of DNA testing to establish innocence. But in every case of an executed defendant of which I am aware, that technology has confirmed guilt. …..

This and the other opinions are interesting DP reading.

I think Lithwick over at Slate.com covered the bases nicely in her piece “Barely Lethal” as she examines the lethal injection controversy.  This may belong in the category of beat the dead horse, but hey….it’s a good article.  In part…

The reason modern executions have “evolved” from hangings, to gas chambers and firing squads (and other creepy vestiges of black-and-white movies), to modern lethal injection, is not for the ease and comfort of those being executed, but for the ease and comfort of the American public. Everything we as a society have done to sterilize and medicalize capital punishment—from secret midnight killings to swapping the hangman for a technician in a lab coat—has served to mitigate the outrageousness of the state taking a human life. If today’s death-penalty opponents win the battle and achieve their perfectly painless execution (a sweet slumber resulting from a single overdose of barbiturates), they will have lost the larger war against government-sanctioned murder.

At the same time, supporters of capital punishment are misguided in their opposition to finding a less cruel method of execution. Supporters of the death penalty are frequently heard insisting that death by lethal injection is actually too good for the cruel and ruthless killers who merit it. As Ronald Bailey recently argued online in Reason, “As harsh as it sounds, if lethal injection is good enough to end the suffering of a beloved pet, it’s probably too good for a pre-meditated murderer.”

Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill, a convicted cop killer, received a stay of execution in January while on the gurney awaiting his lethal injection.  Challenging the method of execution, his lawyers contend that the inmate could suffer pain at the stage in the process when the lethal dose is injected.  Although this is a similar challenge that led to the retirement of Old Sparky, the Supremes have not had a case (until now) where they considered the prospect of the painless execution.  Curious….how humane does the method have to be? What is humane? 

Only in our current American culture has such Constitutional silliness become possible. At times, the oral argument sounded silly.   Not to be macabre, but don’t you think lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, even Old Sparky are reasonable methods for dispatching condemned prisoners? Burning at the stake, drawing and quartering…I’d say that’s unduly painful and in the cruel and unusual category.  Should the condemned have the option of choosing his poison?  I think not.  The choice is the state’s and it’s simple….(to shamelessly borrow from Eddie Izzard)…cake or death?  Oh, I’m soooo sorry. We’re all out of cake.

I just stumbled across an interesting post at SCOTUSblog that I thought I’d share (yes, it’s exam time and I can always find a distraction rather than study).

Lyle’s post on Alabama v. Adams, in which the state of Alabama urges the Court to reconsider its 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, has touched off a lively debate in the comments. One interesting aspect of the cert. petition itself is that the state is represented at the Court by Alabama Attorney General Troy King and Chief Deputy Attorney General Keith Miller (who serves as counsel of record). Alabama Solicitor General Kevin Newsom, who has argued at the Court and appears frequently on briefs filed there, does not appear on the petition.

Any readers interested in passing along to me, merely to satisfy my curiosity, as to why Newsom isn’t on brief, or am I reading too much into this?

Before our D.A.’s office proceeds with a death penalty case, we assess the defendant’s mental capacity as we know the defense will sometimes try to play that card. We subpoena school records, interview former teachers, etc. to gather sufficient evidence to refute such a claim. But, for these San Antonio prosecutors, the facts don’t get much better for hosing down the retardation defense…. (more…)

You don’t need a doctor at an execution…..just a couple of grave diggers.