Thursday, January 13, 2011

Book Learnin

John Paul Stevens reviews David Garland's Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition in the NY Review of Books (adding it to the liebary)

.. and Justice Thomas halts an execution?! Marking the first time since his confirmation hearings that the justice has ever said, done anything

Meanwhile, the police union is not at all happy about SRB's plan for an independent review of the Select Lounge fracas. Imagine how PO'd they'd be if the citizen review board was actually empowered & functional?

2 comments:

theprez98 said...

The fact that Justice Thomas rarely speaks during oral arguments is unusual in this day and age, when most of the justices ask lots of questions. But in historical context, it is considerably much less unusual: Justices William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and Harry Blackmun (among others) were quiet in the same way that Thomas is now.

ppatin said...

Garland calls his book about the death penalty "A Peculiar Institution" (an obvious slavery reference) and then goes on to claim that he's neither for or against it? Pardon my skepticism.

At least he's honest enough to admit that the abolition of the DP in many parts of Europe was against the will of the majority.