ACLU: Lethal Injection Violates First Amendment

Not the Eighth; they've tried that before. Not even the Third, about quartering troops in people's homes (aren't lethal drugs "troops," and isn't a man's body his ultimate "home"?).

Nope. They're saying it violates the First Amendmet. The one about free expression.

Stupid:

The American Civil Liberties Union claimed Wednesday that California's lethal injection method violates the First Amendment rights of execution witnesses by not allowing them to see if the inmate is experiencing pain before death.

The federal lawsuit says the only reason San Quentin State Prison officials inject a paralyzing agent is to sanitize the execution and prevent witnesses from perhaps seeing convulsions.

The paralyzing drug, according to the lawsuit, "makes it impossible for witnesses to determine whether death row inmates in California are being subjected to substantial and unnecessary pain before dying."

The induced paralysis, the group argued, conceals significant information to which the public is entitled.

Well, the First Amendment is about free expression, not free receipt of other's information, although I suppose that's implicated to some extent.

The executee's bodily convulsions are "speech"? Any port in a storm, I guess.

Allow me to quote a very smart judge in issuing my own dismissal of this lawsuit:

Or, in the words of the competition judge to Adam Sandler’s title character in the movie, “Billy Madison,� after Billy Madison had responded to a question with an answer that sounded superficially reasonable but lacked any substance,

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I'veever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.

Thanks to Frank.

posted by Ace at 01:31 PM

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