Thus, there is greater awareness of the possibility of judicial error today. There is greater pressure now to give the convicted man every possible chance to prove his innocence, or to prove that his trial was improper in some legal sense.

Given all of that, the review and appeal process that lasts some 24 years, which has happened more than once, is patently not swift justice, either for the convicted man or for the justice system itself. If our court system is jammed beyond its physical limits to provide swift justice, then shouldn't there be a move to expand the courts to meet the load in a timely fashion?

That there is no such a move underway just might be due to sly political and judicial maneuvering to make the death penalty extremely hard to pursue, or to do away with it altogether. This might be yet another case of judicial legislation from the bench, or slow-rolling the system, based on the "private" beliefs of the appeals judges in question.

Would you care to be a touch more specific than that?

How about "Republicans in Congress"? I mean, c'mon Steve, there is an ideology that has driven the Patriot Act excesses from the beginning, and it has its home on one particular party.

It's a state issue clearly but it's congress's fault for writing bad law (again) so so lay blame where it's due not at the feet of the AG. Everyone knows if you give a government agency the option to use power that option will be exercised.

Seriously.

Gonzales Could Become Chief Executioner

He's gonna start executing people?