Texas killed Bobby Wayne Woods, last night.
James C. McKinley had an excellent piece in this morning's NYT setting out the so-called justification for killing the mentally impaired in Texas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/04execute.html?_r=1&ref=us
and, see:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/selective-empathy/?hp
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Are you referring to the Linda Greenhouse piece, which I thought was really provocative and disturbing? She talks about those 2 war vets, one of whom had his death sentence commuted for bad lawyering and one not? The obvious deciding factor for the right wing justices seems to have been adequate military service, don't you think? I mean, if we train you to kill and you fulfill your killing contract in war (as opposed to flaming out, the way the other guy did), then you have a right to not be killed by the state. I'm not in favor of the death penalty in most cases (see comments on child abuse, below) but it does seem that selective enforcement of it makes the justice system overtly (as opposed to covertly, which is the way it usually is) into an oligarchy.
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