[California] will have to decide, is this a risky process? Does it cause pain? Are there alternatives? I don't see any chance of this case ending the death penalty. But it does raise certain life issues that could affect the larger death-penalty debate. |
A lot of states seem comfortable with a stalemate on the death penalty. Executions are rare in most states but they're not ready to get rid of them. |
Commutation is meant for when the law hasn't caught up with society, |
Commutation is meant for when the law hasn't caught up with society. |
Every lawyer worth his salt is putting in a lethal injection challenge. |
Fees go up. What makes this case high is not 2005, however, but how unusual a case it was. |
Florida's all alone out here. That's something that usually gets the (U.S.) Supreme Court's attention. Sometimes you want to preempt that and change your own law before the Supreme Court steps in and you have no law. |
I don't think most people want it to be a big display again. People are just as happy not to see it. |
I don't think this (Morales) case is going to be the end of the death penalty or an insolvable problem. But for the short term, this is a mess. |
I think it would be the final straw for a lot of people who are on the fence on the death penalty. |
I think we're in a period where the death penalty will be used more judiciously. The bottom line is each year for the past four or five years the number of death sentences have been down, so there's something going on here. |
If you are a lawyer you are filing something just like Clarence Hill as we speak. |
If you find an innocent man who has been executed, that's a final nail through that. |
It actually may create more death because the person facing the death penalty for this kind of offense might be inclined to say, 'No greater punishment incurred if I killed the victim. |
It would be counterproductive to force the issue, then have a 5-4 vote that juveniles can be executed, ... The issue then may not be revisited for a long time. It may be a better thing for the issue to percolate, for states to ban executing minors on their own, instead of being forced to by the courts. |