Yet another state suspends executions

I haven't posted in a bit, as I sorted through something I have written about on my personal blog. Not that there hasn't been news, I have just paid some attention to me. But now- back to the law stuff.

In a bit of news without analysis, these are happy times for death penalty opponents. A North Carolina court handed down a ruling that amounts to a moratorium on executions. The law in NC is that a doctor must attend to the proceedings, but the state medical ethics board ruled that to supervise an execution is inconsistent with medical ethics. No doctors will supervise, therefore no execution.

Finding procedural loopholes are a time-honored practice in the profession to avoid having to make a potentially unpopular decision on the merits. Last month, the Maryland Court of Appeals stayed all executions (171 page PDF file) because the Department of Corrections did not follow the necessary administrative processes in developing their execution protocols. If the Court really wanted to stop the machinery of death, their chosen method is cowardly- however, it had the effect of bringing the death penalty back to floor of the Maryland legislature, and the Governor announced that he would sign a bill to abolish. Given that Maryland has no substantial history of executions, I would venture to guess that it will pass.

My beloved home state of New Jersey- a state that has only sent about 20-odd people to death row, had more than half of the sentences overturned, and hasn't executed anyone since the sixties- is on the verge of abolishing the death penalty. In all, twelve states have suspended executions for one reason or another. Even a Federal judge has bullied prosecutors over what he believes is an unnecessary death case.

The tide is turning in this area. Analysis later.

The BBC...

sums it up succinctly: "Altogether, [Saddam's] execution as we now see it is shown to be an ugly, degrading business, which is more reminiscent of a public hanging in the 18th Century than a considered act of 21st Century official justice."

Saddam being hanged-GRAPHIC

The whole scene from the execution, taken from a cellphone camera. Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged. Hat tip to Appellate Law & Practice. Keywords: saddam hussein iraq bush execution hanging hanged executed

Saddam hanged

Let me start thusly: he was guilty, of that there can be no doubt. He was hanged for a massacre that had occurred over 20 years earlier, and the proof was incontrovertible. Despite that, I have serious reservations about the fairness of his trial- I find it an outrage that two judges were removed midstream for being insufficiently partial to the prosecution, and only a fool would argue that the outcome was not preordained. The procedures in place were substantially less rigorous than those at Nuremberg, and no one at Saddam's trial possessed even a fraction of the stature of Justice Jackson.

In the end, though, I am struck by Saddam's, well, humanity at the very end. The Bush Administration tried to demonize Saddam, a cross of Satan and Fonzie- snap his fingers and people die by the thousands. But when you read something like this, "'He just gave up,' said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser. 'We were astonished. It was strange. He just gave up,'" you realize that he was just a man.

The usual people reacted in the usual ways.

The Vatican:

The execution punishes "a crime with another crime," said Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI's top prelate for justice issues, in an interview published Friday with the Rome newspaper La Repubblica. "The death penalty is not a natural death. And no one can give death, not even the state," Martino was quoted as saying.

Great Britain:

"We oppose the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the individual or the crime," said Rob Tinline, spokesman for the British Foreign Office. "[But] it's an Iraqi trial, with Iraqi defendants, in an Iraqi court — it's a decision for the Iraqi authorities."

Jesse Jackson:

"Saddam's heinous crimes against humanity can never be diminished, but he was our ally while he was doing it," he said Friday. "Saddam as a war trophy only deepens the catastrophe to which we are indelibly linked."

I do not claim any special knowledge of the hereafter. I do not know whether Saddam will be rewarded with virgins and ambrosia, or burn in hell, or simply fade into the black. I do know that he was no monster. He was just a man. He both rose and fell at the behest of my government, and you can add one more body to the count that will stain my great nation's soul.

Saddam Hussein's Death Sentence Affirmed

Those Iraqi judges sure know how to do what they're told....

I will not shed a tear for that man when he is strung up, but I might shed a tear for justice or the rule of law. The only thing missing from that courtroom was the kangaroo itself.

Hearty congratulations!

To Gideon's Guardian, a fellow PD somewhere who saved his client's life.

I never thought I'd be thrilled to hear the words, "life in prison without the possibility of parole" but I am.

And I am thrilled for you, too. Pour yourself a drink and a take a rest, you've earned it.