The trial was United States v. Kristin Gilbert. Presiding over this, the first death penalty case in Massachusetts in several decades, was the most complicated and stressful thing I've ever done (aside, perhaps, from raising teenagers). The experience left me with one unavoidable conclusion: that a legal regime relying on the death penalty will inevitably execute innocent people - not too often, one hopes, but undoubtedly sometimes. Mistakes will be made because it is simply not possible to do something this difficult perfectly, all the time. Any honest proponent of capital punishment must face this fact.
Of course, the problem isn't simply that proponents of capital punishment refuse to face the fact; most will say that they realize that this is an issue. (With the exception, of course, of current and past governors of Virginia, Oklahoma, and, most especially, the great and glorious state of Texas.) The problem is that the reaction of most such proponents is: "Yeah? So? Your point being?"
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!