George Will: Abolish the death penalty

[Machiavelli]

George F. Will
The Washington Post
September 28, 2018

Without being aware of it, Vernon Madison might become a footnote in constitutional law because he is barely aware of anything. For more than 30 years, Alabama, with a tenacity that deserves a better cause, has been trying to execute him for the crime he certainly committed, the 1985 murder of a police officer. Twice the state convicted him unconstitutionally (first excluding African Americans from the jury, then insinuating inadmissible evidence into the record). In a third trial, the judge, who during his time on the bench overrode more life sentences (six) than any other Alabama judge, disregarded the jury’s recommended sentence of life imprisonment and imposed the death penalty...

His counsel of record, Bryan A. Stevenson, head of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., says it was undisputed in the penalty phase of Madison’s third trial that he already “suffered from a mental illness marked by paranoid delusions.” ...

Madison’s case compels us to focus on the death penalty in its granular reality: Assisting someone who is non-ambulatory, and bewildered because he is (in Stevenson's phrase) “memory-disordered,” to be strapped down so an executioner can try to find a vein — often a problem with the elderly — to receive a lethal injection. Capital punishment is withering away because the process of litigating the administration of it is so expensive, and hence disproportionate to any demonstrable enhancement of public safety, but also because of a healthy squeamishness that speaks well of us...

Full article

[Bigun]

No!  Not only no but hell no!

[Hoodat]

George F. Will
The Washington Post
September 28, 2018

Full article

Uh, no.  The death penalty has ZERO to do with the injustice of this man being tried three times.  I am sick and tired of liberals (yes, Will is a liberal) imposing their will on the States by taking depriving the citizens of each State the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to mold and shape their societies through the drafting and implementation of law.  If he doesn't believe in the death penalty, then he has every right as a resident of the District of Columbia to lobby, petition, influence, and even vote for legislators who will ban the death penalty in Washington, DC.  But keep your fascist hands off the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and their right do decide for themselves how they want their society shaped through the implementation of law.

[Frank Cannon]

Don't all Commie Pinko Libs argue against the death penalty? Big deal.

[the_doc]

Don't all Commie Pinko Libs argue against the death penalty? Big deal.

A few years ago, I heard that some Rats in Congress floated a proposal to ban capital punishment for the crime of treason.   Hmmmm....

[Fishrrman]

No.
Just... no.

[goatprairie]

George can tell that to the family of Minnesota corrections guard Joseph Gomm who was killed earlier this year by an inmate serving time at Stillwater prison for second degree murder.
Hundreds if not thousands of innocent people have been killed over the years by escaped or paroled convicted killers. Even guards in prison are not totally safe from killers.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

George, stifle yourself.