Why the death penalty persists ...

... according to an article in Huffington Post.


In this great article about why the Supreme Court will not take a stand on the death penalty--including recent cases dealing with unknown (i.e., secret) chemicals used to carry out lethal injection--a death penalty scholar is quoted. He offers one reason why the death penalty persists in the US, in spite of the fact that its use has dramatically declined.


Part of his quote is "the Court appears happy not to be confronted with the issue" (of the death penalty).


According to the article, "One reason may be that some justices believe that problems with the death penalty plague the criminal justice system more generally, he said."


"If your chain of reasoning is that the death penalty is arbitrary and therefore unconstitutional, why are other long prison sentences not unconstitutional. If anything, the noncapital system is more arbitrary," Mandery said.


Got that? Yes, the death penalty is plagued by serious problems--arbitrariness, bias based on race and social class, wrongful conviction, etc. But then, so is all of criminal justice.


So if capital punishment is unconstitutional, so too is all criminal punishment.


Except, according to the Court, "death is different."

Huge counterterrorism news!

Just as I have stated on numerous occasions, and even written about as well, a study finds that US intelligence gathering is actually making us LESS safe in some ways. Years ago I wrote: "Every minute and every dollar spent determining the books that I read is a minute and a dollar not spent addressing real threats, and there are real threats out there." Turns out, unfortunately, that I was right.

Report Finds Police Intelligence Gathering Tactics Threaten National Security (By Candice Bernd, Truthout | Report)

To top that off, a federal judge has ruled that the entire NSA data mining program is a violation of the US Constitution, just as I wrote about as well. After all, why have a Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant unless it is going to apply to the federal government?!?!?

According to the Washington Post, "U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon found that a lawsuit by Larry Klayman, a conservative legal activist, has 'demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success' on the basis of Fourth Amendment privacy protections against unreasonable searches.

"Leon granted the request for an injunction that blocks the collection of phone data for Klayman and a co-plaintiff and orders the government to destroy any of their records that have been gathered. But the judge stayed action on his ruling pending a government appeal, recognizing in his 68-page opinion the 'significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues.'"

This is what Justice Leon, a judge on the US District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote:

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.”

And, incredibly, if you recall, Obama's Director of National Intelligence stated publicly that this program did not even exist!

Obama Urged to Fire Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (By Staff, Consortium News | News Analysis)

And finally, we learn this:

Beyond the NSA: Other Agencies Spy on You, Too (By Shahid Buttar, Truthout | Op-Ed)

Reading all this might make you think, what? USA! USA! USA! USA!????

 

Clearly, this is big news. Thanks at least to the news agencies covering it!