You can read more about it at various posts on Mick Arran’s blog, on my blog, or on a special Amnesty International web page. Like that page puts it, the law is putting finality (that is, the idea that once a verdict has been reached, and appeals about that trial are over, that’s that) over fairness: the idea that if later on overwhelming reasons to believe someone is innocent after all, that person should not be executed.

Now where the h*ll are my ripe tomatoes? It’s late August, fer cryin’ out loud.

Hey, did you see the positive development in the Troy Davis case? It was preceded by another Times article last Friday about the rise of lonely but impassioned dissents in lower courts on death penalty cases. The article credited the cumulative effect of a lot of DNA exonerations, and frustration with the rigidity of the 1996 federal law that made it harder for death row prisoners to appeal, but I think it’s also a sign that U.S. society is rejoining the rest of the world on the issue. Slowly.

Of course, the SC decision also featured this lovely bit from two justices who should never have been confirmed:
Justice Scalia, in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the hearing would be “a fool’s errand,” because Mr. Davis’s factual claims were “a sure loser.”

“This court has never held,” Justice Scalia wrote, “that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

Gotta love the airquote around ‘actually’. And these guys have lifetime jobs… Think Quakerly thoughts, Nell. Go make some pesto.

The Spelling Guru