NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS

No cute quips. Our country executed its 1000th person last night.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4490842.stm

The quote from Amnesty International in the BBC article, says it all: That this milestone puts the US in the same category as countries like China, Iran, Saudia Arabia and Vietnam.

Leonard Pitts column in the Herald today , that we have in all likelihood already executed an innocent man reminds us that the system is broke and needs to be fixed.

As I wrote in a posting to this site on November 17, 2005, over 6% of the people sentenced to death in Illinois were INNOCENT. What makes us think that the unfortunate young (25) man that Mr. Pitts wrote about was the only innocent person sentenced to death?

Maybe, on this sad day we should reflect on some words of wisdom:

“From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery ofdeath. For more than 20 years I have endeavored — indeed, I have struggled — along with a majority of this Court, to develop proceduraland substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance offairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue tocoddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has beenachieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally andintellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penaltyexperiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that nocombination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can savethe death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies. Thebasic question — does the system accurately and consistently determinewhich defendants "deserve" to die? — cannot be answered in the
affirmative.

In 1971, in an opinion which has proved partly prophetic, the secondJustice Harlan, writing for the Court, observed: "Those who have come to grips with the hard task of actually attempting to draft means of channeling capital sentencing discretion have confirmed the lesson taught by the history recounted above. To identify before the fact those characteristics of criminal homicides and their perpetrators which call for the death penalty, and to express these characteristics in language which can be fairly understood and applied by the sentencing authority, appear to be tasks which are beyond present human ability. . . . For a court to attempt to catalog the appropriate factors in this elusive area could inhibit rather than expand the scope of consideration, for no list of circumstances would ever be really complete."
McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183, 204, 208. CALLINS v. COLLINS, 510 U.S. 1141, 1145
(1994) (J. Blackmun, dissenting).

If ever there was a day that cried out for some lawyer or judge to put his or her foot in their mouth, so I can get this Blog back on track, today is the day.