Politics Corner, May 29th

 

Via National Park Service

A man is going to be executed because a clerk lost his appeal behind a file cabinet instead of filing it as his lawyer had been informed. He was sentenced to death after his initial lawyers offered no witnesses and in effect no defense. The jury never knew about his documented mental disabilities or the abuse he had suffered. He cannot appeal to the federal courts and the state courts will not recognize the appeal because it was filed after a deadline even though the subsequent lawyer received a copy of the appeal marked "received and filed" before the deadline. [ProPublica]

I will always abhor capital punishment. But if we are going to kill people in the name of the state we must do better than this. It's bad enough if we imprison the innocent. We can't give back the time lost or take back the suffering that occurred but we can restore their freedom. The man in the news story is not innocent but maybe not deserving of death. He certainly did not receive a fair trial. And if we take his life we cannot give it back.

The boxy building is Milwaukee's War Memorial.

If you click the pic you get a larger view of the statue of Abe Lincoln under the flagpole out front.
photo mine

Political discussion welcome.