Posts Tagged ‘justice’

Executed Today

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Wow. If you’re a fan of history and are interested in state justice (and injustice) and have a taste for the macabre (not incompatible with the previous two avocations) Executed Today is your new thing. This blog covered the state murder of Cameron Todd Willingham a year and a half before the excellent New Yorker piece.

There’s been a single execution in all of New England since 1960, in Connecticut. The large majority of executions are in the South, but particularly in Texas.

The most recent execution in the US was yesterday. Reginald Blanton was executed in Texas. There is some question as to his guilt.

I don’t know why we continue to “tinker with the machinery of death” in the words of Justice Blackmun. Really, it just seems so unwise.

Shouting_Banner

Governance and murder

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

Read this first.

Texas governor Rick Perry presided over the execution of an innocent man and now he’s trying to hide it. The cover up is so blatant that even teevee journalism feels bold enough to call him on it.
YouTube Preview Image

Science and evidence and capital crime

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty : The New Yorker

Somebody linked to this a couple of weeks ago and I just got around to reading it. This is a fantastic piece of journalism. I feel guilty that I didn’t have to pay for it – it’s that good. I’m imagining the scheming going on to turn this into a movie and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Movies are generally terrible. And yet, everybody should know about this. Oh well, nevermind, read it now or save it for later like I did. And link to it.

Ted Olson and Same-Sex Marriage

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Theodore Olson’s Road to Championing Same-Sex Marriage – NYTimes.com: “”

This article doesn’t do much to explain Ted Olson’s interest in litigating in favor of equal marriage rights. Here’s what I got out of it:

  1. He stood up for a black teammate once back in the 60’s.
  2. He’s got a so slight you can barely see it libertarian bent.
  3. He doesn’t go to church.
  4. He’s got personal convictions.

And that’s about it! His conservative friends can’t figure it out either, I guess. I hope he’ll be remembered for furthering our freedoms rather than winning Bush v. Gore. Maybe he does too.

Justice and Prejudice

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

One to add to my “bad prosecutor” posts. The message here is, if you’re accused of a crime it is better not to be a member of a despised minority group.

Innocent Man Freed, But Shabby Prosecutor Still Works as Judge: Bernard Baran served 22 years on dubious child molestation charges, yet the prosecutor who convicted him isn’t even inconvenienced – Reason Magazine