Jon Stewart sends up Glenn Beck; Martha Coakley sends up Holly Wood

Coakley opposes death penalty (except in instances when State Prosecutors would be required to spend additional time, money, and resources)

OR

Oh Martha we hardly know you

“At the end of the day, if the state of Alabama wins, this kid with an IQ in the 60s will be executed” said Bright, who teaches at Yale and Georgetown law schools.

No one is criticizing Martha Coakley for doing her job, she is being fairly criticized for how she does her job. Coakley’s argument (as in one of her rationales in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts) is in part justified by the idea of an excessive burden on the state; expending time, money, and resources in pursuit of justice.  It seems to me the least the state can do is utilize resources to obtain a just result.  

Coakley and her aides argue that her signing the brief had nothing to do with the death penalty and that they were purely concerned with the legal implications of allowing federal courts more discretion in reviewing decisions that state courts have already made, which Coakley asserts would take additional time, money, and resources. link

I think most of us, especially in a death penalty case, favor the idea of the the state taking the additional time, money, and resources to get it right, even if that meant the defendant can appeal to the Federal courts.

Coakley said that the brief she signed, though it is attached to a death penalty case, is limited in scope and is designed to address only the question of what role federal courts should have in reviewing state court decisions. The brief makes no mention of capital punishment.

“This, from our point of view, is unrelated to a death penalty or any of the issues around that,” Coakley said [although inconveniently for Martha and Holly Wood, an actual death sentence for Holly Wood lies in the balance]. “A real concern was that we get a clear determination from the Supreme Court on what is the standard of review of a federal court looking at a state court decision.”

Someone talk to Martha about “real” concerns.

The case illustrates the tension between Coakley’s role as the state’s top law enforcement official and her political ambition. Her involvement in the case could have political implications in a highly charged Senate race in which her past support for the death penalty has already come under fire.

“I have positions that I’ve presented during the campaign, but I’m still the attorney general and I have to do the job as attorney general that I was elected to,” Coakley said. “If I did otherwise would I not be criticized for doing something political?”

What we have in the second paragraph above is politician Martha Coakley claiming it would be untoward or “political” to have made another choice in this case.  That is not true.  She is making the argument that principle required her to make a politically unpopular decision. That is not true and nothing could be farther from the truth.  Nor is she somehow a martyr for the choice she made.  Instead, it is Holly Wood who may be the martyr for the point of view Coakley decided to argue.  

“It’s definitely a death penalty case,” said Kerry Scanlon, the attorney for Woods. “I was surprised to see that Massachusetts had signed onto this brief.”

At issue is the interpretation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which in most instances bars federal reconsideration of legal and factual issues on which state courts have already ruled. A Supreme Court ruling in Alabama’s favor could result in federal courts having to defer to state judgments in many instances. Death penalty cases from the states are among those frequently challenged in federal court.

“If you’re concerned about the death penalty, then you have to be concerned about people being able to have their case reviewed in federal court,” said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama, which opposes capital punishment. “The error rate, in my judgment, is shockingly high, so high that you want federal courts to be able to review these cases without a lot of restrictions.”

Bordering in incompetence unless she wants to make more work for her office?

“I’m against the death penalty, but it would be bordering on incompetence for an attorney general not to sign this case,” he [Tracey Maclin, a law professor at Boston University] said. “If the Supreme Court makes it harder, that’s more work that they would have to do. Unless she wants to make more work for her office, she has a vested interest.”

We don’t even have death penalty cases in Massachusetts.  

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