🚀 go-pugleaf

Recent arguments seem to perpetuate the popular misconception that the
Constitution prohibits cruel or unusual punishments.  It does not.  To
be unconstitutional, a punishment must be both cruel *and* unusual.
Cruel but usual punishments are acceptable.  (Likewise unusual but
not-cruel punishments, like those meted out by the Lake Oswego judge
who sentences miscreants to give Christmas gifts to the needy.)

Hanging was commonplace when the Constitution was drafted.  Supreme
Court arguments that capital punishment was unconstitutional seemed to
evolve from the "penumbral" interpretations common in decades past,
when jurists created new law in a touchy-feely fashion.

There have surely been egregious miscarriages of justice involving
capital punishment.  But I sleep more soundly knowing that Wesley Dodd
will kill no more little boys.

  -=- Andrew Klossner  (andrew@frip.wv.tek.com)
                       (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew)