There's No Business Like Justice Business

He's competent.  

That is, and per the statutory language, he is able "to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him [and] to assist properly in his defense."

So says the judge.  The guy was evaluated and the judge held a hearing (on more than one day, no less! Wowsers!).  

They begin picking a jury today.

Oh, sorry.  This is Dylan Roof.  The guy who they say walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. and blew away nine people because, they say, the people were African-American and because, they also say, Roof did it in order to start a race war.

Which is how it happens that a federal judge is going to oversee a capital trial for young Mr. Roof. Because Loretta Lynch want him to get executed by the feds.

Not for killing nine people (which is a lot, but nowhere near the record).  Not for killing them purposely.  Not for killing them during a Bible study or while they were in Church.  None of that.

Loretta Lynch wants the feds to kill him because his heart wasn't pure when he killed.  His motive was bad.  (As opposed to the noble motives that might drive other folks to kill nine people in church? OK, I'm probably not being altogether fair.  No, actually I am.  It is that stupid.)

Of course, the representatives of the good people of South Carolina also want to kill Roof.  Next-in-line to be UN Ambassador Nicky Haley was for it from day one.  The prosecutor took longer to sign on, but she was for it, too.  Still the feds get first shot at finding 12 jurors who'll look at Roof and say - as one judge put it in explaining why as a member of a three-judge panel he once voted against death -

FUCK YOU

Anyway, and as the Times reported, amid the rush to kill, what with all that enthusiasm and jockeying for first, er, shot at ordering up a gurney by the feds and the Southern Carolinians, it turns out that the representatives of the people don't really give a rat's ass what the people think.  Of course, that's always true in capital cases to the extent that we kick the folks who don't believe in killin' off the jury. What's being ignored here are the voices of the families of the murdered and the survivors.

There's a big movement for so-called "victim's rights."  They're enshrined in various state constitutions.  Paul Cassell's made a career advocating for them.  Politicians are enthusiastic. I mean, who can oppose treating those whose lives are destroyed by criminal acts with dignity and respect - with honoring and guaranteeing their needs.

Needs that won't much be helped by years of appeals and arguments and guaranteeing that Roof's hate is repeatedly front and center.  Needs that won't be helped by more hate and more killing.  Of a guy who's game to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison - which will happen anyway, the only real question being how his life will be ordered to end.

And then there's the thing about not returning hate for hate and killing for killing.

Ah, but that's without the posturing.  Because hate.  Because victim's rights only count when the victims cry out for vengeance.  

The show begins today.



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And see Scott Greenfield from yesterday.

Loretta Lynch v. Connecticut

This week the Attorney General finally made up her mind.

Following the department’s rigorous review process to thoroughly consider all relevant factual and legal issues, I have determined that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty,

That's Dylan Roof, the kid who's charged with killing 9 people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina last year.

Roof, who's already facing capital charges in South Carolina courts - trial currently set to begin in January - now risks the possibility of another death sentence.  From the feds.  Because he didn't just kill 9 people.  He did it for bad reasons.  Teach that rotten kid a lesson.

It took a year of dithering rigorous review to determine that this was an appropriate use of federal resources.  So that we can get him killed twice. Or maybe it's because the AG doesn't trust those racist hicks in South Carolina to kill a white guy who killed black folk for kicks.  So the AG needs to arrange for a back-up.  You know, just in case.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, in Connecticut.  

• Where the legislature abolished the death penalty going forward but left it in place so that Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes (and incidentally the 9 other folks on death row there) could still be killed.  
• Until State v. Santiago the Connecticut Supreme Court said that the death penalty violated the state's constitution and said that the 11 guys on death row couldn't be executed, either.
• And then, after the personnel on the court changed, put Santiago on hold while reconsidering the matter in the case of Russell Peeler, which was not a good sign if you thought they had it right the first time.

Yesterday, the court spoke.  There are concurrences and dissents, but in its brief and unsigned opinion (footnotes omitted), the court said it would follow its precedent.

A jury found the defendant, Russell Peeler, guilty of, among other things, one count of capital felony in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1999) § 53a-54b (8) and one count of capital felony in violation of General Statutes (Rev. to 1999) § 53a-54b (9) in connection with the 1999 shooting deaths of a woman and her young son, and, following a capital sentencing hearing, the trial court, Devlin, J.,rendered judgment imposing two death sentences. This appeal of the defendant’s death sentences is controlled by State v. Santiago, 318 Conn. 1, 122 A.3d 1 (2015), in which a majority of this court concluded that, following the enactment of No. 12-5 of the 2012 Public Acts (P.A. 12-5), executing offenders who committed capital crimes prior to the enactment of P.A. 12-5 would offend article first, §§ 8 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution. See, e.g., Conway v. Wilton, 238 Conn. 653, 658–62, 680 A.2d 242 (1996) (explaining scope of and rationale for rule of stare decisis). Our conclusion that the defendant’s death sentences must be vacated as unconstitutional in light of Santiago renders moot the defendant’s other appellate claims. The judgment is reversed with respect to the imposition of two sentences of death and the case is remanded with direction to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release on each capital felony count; the judgment is affirmed in all other respects. 

Connecticut is known, among other things, as The Constitution State.

The Attorney General is named Lynch.

You can't make this shit up.