Last Notes

Stadium named for Arnold Schwartzenegger to be renamed because Tookie was executed.

Immature

A jailstay changed my mind on death penalty

Sure it did. So the author went to jail and her delicate sensibilities were assaulted. I fail to see the relevance.

Listen to Yourselves!

"So here is what I think could be the foundation of a true teaching moment for the anti-death-penalty community. One of the main reasons its sermons don’t resonate beyond the choir isn’t that Americans are consumed with racist bloodlust or yearnings for vengeance. It isn’t even because all death-penalty supporters are unshakably convinced of the rightness of their position. It’s because the anti-capital-punishment crowd has lost all credibility."

"I’m sure that from within the movement, saying whatever it takes to save a life seems like a moral obligation — hence the last-minute appeals, the dubiously miraculous discovery of exonerating witnesses, and the rest. But from outside the fishbowl, it just reinforces the impression that nothing they say can be taken at face value."

The Moral Chasm

"The moral chasm between the opposing sides in the death penalty debate was perhaps best displayed on Monday’s Larry King Show, which featured defense attorney Mark Geragos, retired deputy D.A. Robert Martin (who prosecuted Williams), and syndicated radio host Dennis Prager. Also appearing were death-penalty opponents Mike Farrell and Sister Helen Prejean, who was made famous when she was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the film Dead Man Walking."

"Prager, a practicing Jew, a biblical scholar, and as decent and moral a man as one can hope to meet, expounded the traditional case for capital punishment, i.e. that crimes such as those committed by Tookie Williams cry out for the ultimate punishment, that for Williams to keep his life after taking the lives of four defenseless people is an affront to justice. Incredibly, both Geragos and Farrell proceeded completely to mischaracterize Prager’s statement as to mean that anyone who takes another’s life should be executed. I’ll give Geragos and Farrell the benefit of the doubt in saying they may have misunderstood Prager during what was a heated exchange, but the cynic might be forgiven for suspecting they deliberately distorted his words so as to portray him as a madman."

I am not as generous.

"“[Y]ou sit there and lick your lips about the death of a human being,” Farrell shouted at Prager, “you disgust me.” “Exactly right,” added Geragos."

"But the signal moment in the program, the moment that distilled the entire debate, came in a brief exchange between Prager and Sister Prejean. Was it immoral, Prager asked her, for Israel to execute Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust? Prejean hemmed and hawed, she bobbed and weaved, but she could not bring herself to endorse the execution of a man with the blood of millions on his hands."