Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
At the last minute -- and that's no exaggeration -- the Supreme Court intervened and issued a stay of the execution of Hank Skinner in Texas. This could be very temporary. I hope they will at least allow the DNA evidence to be tested and the arguments to be made based on that evidence.
It may well be that Skinner is guilty and it may well be that the evidence will show that. But for crying out loud, let's make sure we do everything we can to prove or disprove that conclusion before imposing an irreversible penalty.
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Ed said:
From the article:
Minute, hour, what's the difference, right? Keep this in mind if Ed's ever hitting on you and says he can go for hours. ;-)
Posted by: Abby Normal | March 25, 2010 9:55 AM
Minute, hour, what's the difference, right? Keep this in mind if Ed's ever hitting on you and says he can go for hours. ;-)
But since he turned a "minute" in to an "hour," wouldn't that imply that he can actually go for days?
Posted by: Geds | March 25, 2010 10:36 AM
Just another case where you want to tear apart the fabric of our society. If we cannot convict someone without evidence and have it stick, then our courts will be clogged up with everyone expecting the same treatment. Our investigators simply do not have the time to look into each an every case for actual evidence.
You are attacking the basis of our founders that we are a good'ol boy society. You are either one of us or your not.
Posted by: George | March 25, 2010 11:31 AM
Geds, no, no, no. You see he's demonstrated a willingness to conflate minutes and hours. He hasn't shown he'll go all the way to days. Besides, we know your interpretation can’t be true because this blog exists.
Posted by: Abby Normal | March 25, 2010 11:32 AM
Abby, I go with Geds' interpretation, which clearly cements Ed's reputation as excellent Bear material.
On a more serious note, I hope that something good comes from this; it would not surprise me at all to find that they issued the stay for the most ridiculous of technicalities, and once that is solved they will let the thing go ahead, without addressing the really pressing issue.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | March 25, 2010 11:36 AM
Oh and, Abby, Ed writes his posts on his time off, and has the blog software programmed to post them at pre-defined times, as he has explained before. How he manages to write all these posts and then "go on for days" all the while finding time to give talks and get some sleep is more than I can tell you, though.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | March 25, 2010 11:38 AM
SCOTUS Blog noted that the full court stayed the execution. No detailed breakdown beyond that.
I was surprised given their recent ruling on DNA evidence.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 25, 2010 12:00 PM
Geds, abby : please!
You're turning into Mr Spock, "exaggerating" to fool KKKAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHN!
"It may well be that Skinner is guilty and it may well be that the evidence will show that. But for crying out loud, let's make sure we do everything we can to prove or disprove that conclusion before imposing an irreversible penalty."
+11, Ed! very true
Posted by: VikingMoose | March 25, 2010 2:03 PM
Yea, I was afraid of that. I think when I'm in this idiom, I sometimes get a bit, uh, sort of carried away. Sorry everyone, sorry.
Posted by: Abby Normal | March 25, 2010 2:33 PM
I'm glad you're just interested in making sure that we don't execute an innocent man, rather than being opposed to the death penalty on principle.
I support the death penalty for those who are guilty. Here in MA where I live, a convict sentenced to life imprisonment without parole murdered another convict while they were in prison. There is no punishment left to give this convict for that crime--MA has no death penalty, and he's already receiving the highest sentence (life imprisonment without parole) allowed by MA law.
Every convict sentenced to life imprisonment without parole is automatically turned into a wild animal. He can murder; or if he escapes, he can commit as many crimes on the outside as he wants. Because there is nothing further you can do to him, unless you execute him. Otherwise, the worst that will happen is, he'll go back to serve the rest of his original sentence.
Posted by: sinz54 | March 25, 2010 2:48 PM
sinz54 - I would suggest either making an argument in its totality for the death sentence or not at all. What you provided is in no way a compelling argument, especially since you fail to address the best arguments counter to your own.
For example, the state could easily isolate certain convicts in a manner that eradicates the risk of others being harmed by them. In addition there are lots of additional punishment the prison can mete out even if such isolated convicts misbehave, by restricting certain privileges as one example.
We already do this with at least some federal prisoners, e.g., the shoe bomber.
Posted by: Michael Heath | March 25, 2010 3:03 PM
sinz54, you're trotting out the same stuff I've heard for years.
Isolating another person from society is actually one of the worst things you can do to a human. We're social animals, after all.
The desire to punish seems to animate what you write here, and understandable as that desire is, it doesn't make it good policy. The death penalty is irreversible, so you can never, ever make a mistake. And given that people are not perfect, that strikes me as too much of a risk.
Could a true sociopath escape and do harm? Yeah, but it is nowhere near all that common. Most murders are not committed by strangers who are sociopaths. A cop once joked to me that you are in far, far greater danger going drinking with your buddies than you are from a stranger. That's because getting killed by someone you don't know (or rather, murdered) is really really rare.
That is why serial killers are so hard to find and catch -- no connection to the victim. Whereas more often, the victim and murderer know each other, usually intimately. And that's because most murders are committed because you are pissed off at someone else. Getting pissed off at a stranger is hard to do, as you have zero emotional investment. Your wife, husband, or friend, on the other hand, can get you really mad.
None of this addresses the other issues with the death penalty: it's rarely fair, there's a long history of making the race of those involved the deciding factor. Then there's the problem that prosecutors often get rated according to how many convictions they secure, not how often justice is done.
Posted by: Jesse | March 25, 2010 3:27 PM
Sinz54: We already have plenty of states that don't have the death penalty, and the prisons there aren't the psychotic zoos that you seem to describe. I hardly think that because there's no worse prison sentence that we can serve than life (assuming we abolished the death penalty) we can expect people to lose all morality and discipline. People just don't work like that, and we can easily take steps to isolate and restrict those who do.
Prison isn't just some isolated reserve where anything goes inside, its (in principle anyway, and we are arguing principle here) a highly regulated place.
So please, you need a better argument than that.
Posted by: Robert | March 25, 2010 6:01 PM
But Ed, didn't you hear Judge Scalia: IT DOESN'T MATTER if he's innocent. Once a person is duly convicted and sentenced, well, that's good enough for Tony! Evidence, schmevidence!
Posted by: clamboy | March 26, 2010 1:12 PM