Death Not Worth Discussion?

Amidst all the hullaballoo about Grokster and the ten commandments cases and Kelo v. New London, no one seems to be talking about Bell v. Thompson. You can see from this brief discussion that it was an insanely complicated case, procedurally speaking, but let me see if I can simplify it: Thompson was sentenced to death, he lost his state-level appeal, he filed a habeas petition in federal court and it was dismissed and the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal. Thompson then filed for cert. with the Supreme Court and was denied, and finally he filed another habeas petition. Sometime after the Sixth Circuit dismissed the first habeas, it found new evidence that convinced the court it had made a mistake, so the Sixth Circuit tried to change its previous decision to correct its mistake. The Supreme Court said no, you can't do that. Kill him!

To put it even more simply: The Supreme Court said in America we don't care if we screw up and kill people by mistake.

Awesome, huh?

This decision is outrageous, but no more so than the fact that intellectual property or ten commandments issues seem to be more important to Americans than their own complicity in state-sponsored killing. Priorities? Not so much. Oh, and you know those people who care so much about the ten commandments? I'm pretty sure one of them says something about not killing.

Funny, for some strange reason the chorus of this song just popped into my head.

Posted June 30, 2005 06:45 AM | law general