The People need a supreme pair

California Having Hard Time Killing People....Supreme Court Having Hard Time Thinking or clinking....

California now takes between 20 and 25 years to kill off one of their many pesky death row inmates....... (The state also has 30 prisoners who have been there more than 25 years.)

Still, sooner or later they get 'em—after all, the average age of arrest is just 28. (Really takes the fun out of it though, when they're all old!)

In short, California is finding that it is not spending enough money to kill people and so the whole system is lurching into a shambles. But it's good news for the rest of the country!

The Supreme Court ruled back in April that lethal injection was so totally not cruel and unusual, and so a killing spree began across the nation. Whee!

Except it turns out the Court don't read so good. And a couple of academics show up on the Washington Post editorial page today to dispute the Court's reckless misreadings of research:
A prominent line of reasoning, endorsed by several justices, holds that if capital punishment fails to deter crime, it serves no useful purpose and hence is cruel and unusual, violating the Eighth Amendment. This reasoning tracks public debate as well. While some favor the death penalty on retributive grounds, many others (including President Bush) argue that the only sound reason for capital punishment is to deter murder.

And:
Justice Stevens argues,

"In the absence of such evidence, deterrence cannot serve as a sufficient
penological justification for this uniquely severe and irrevocable punishment."

Perhaps..... But the absence of evidence of deterrence should not be confused with evidence of absence. Got that? Nobody knows yet if killing people keeps people from killing people. Except, you know, after they're dead. Dead people don't kill people ever.
By Choire Sicha 06/30/08 4:40 PM File Under: California, Death Penalty, Duly Noted, Politics, Scandal, Supreme Court