Richard Glossip to be executed this afternoon

I remember as a 7th grader doing the clock countdown with my classmates to the execution of Caryl Chessman in April, 1960 and applauded with the rest of them when the clock struck the moment, an action I profoundly regret today.  So I have watched with horror the unseemly haste with which the  the politicos in Oklahoma are driven to execute Richard Glossip.

Whether anyone should be executed without any physical evidence and merely on the say-so of someone (Sneed - who says he was hired by Glossip) who had everything to gain by ratting out someone else is problematic at best. And evidence is accumulating that Glossip might in fact be innocent as he has consistently maintained.  I'm not so naive as to always believe the protestations of the convicted, yet to argue that courts and juries never make mistakes is the height of hubris and shows a reverence for big government I just can't accept. Unfortunately, evidence of innocence has never been enough to overturn a conviction in the appellate courts as Justice Scalia noted in Re Troy Anthony Davis, a writ for habeas corpus, as I was reminded when reviewing Anatomy of Injustice, the story of a mentally deficient man who was convicted three times of a murder which we now know he did not commit.

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-1443Scalia.pdf

As I noted in my review, it seems to me that innocence should trump just about everything and when trial courts engage in malfeasance, no matter how many trials someone has, shouldn’t exculpatory evidence best all else?

Justice is a concept everyone wants but is all too often defined as revenge rather than fairness. As of May 2014, 14,000 people have been executed in the United States and 3,000 remain on death row. It has been estimated that 4% of those executed were innocent. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/201... and more information at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innoc...

Reversal by Michael Connelly

Connelly combines two of his best creations in this legal novel starring Mickey Haller and Hieronymous Bosch. The story is told in the first person by Haller and third person about Bosch’s investigation.  Haller has been hired as an independent prosecutor to retry the case of a man sent to prison for 24 years for the murder of a young girl.  His case had been overturned and despite DNA evidence that appears to exonerate him, the D.A.’s office has decided it still has enough evidence to prove Jessup, the alleged killer, was guilty of the murder.

I don’t know why some authors feel it’s necessary for the bad guys to always target a cop’s family member or something similar. It’s just so improbable and unrealistic that I tend to tune out.  It’s almost as if they must believe the cops or whomever won’t do their best unless there is personal involvement, which is, of course, nonsense.

Good story though.  I enjoyed it.

Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

If you want a detailed plot summary with lots of spoilers see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brass_Verdict.  I enjoyed the story very much, lots of neat trial work.  The plot was perhaps a bit contrived but no matter.  I like Mickey Haller’s character. Harry Bosch also plays a role in the novel and it turns out he has more in common with Haller than one would have expected, both literally and figuratively.

I had no idea what a “brass verdict” but when googled in the urban dictionary it does make sense.

Death at Seaworld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity by David Kirby

Our relationship to the animals around us is a tenuous one.  As the earth’s top predators what responsibility do we have to other species? I remember going to Seaworld in California many years ago and watching in awe as the orcas performed their tricks. I would be less enthralled today after what we have learned over the years regarding the natural habitat of the orcas compared to the cramped and unnatural living quarters of those in captivity.

Tilikum had been captured as a baby off Iceland (note that the Icelandic orcas have a different culture than those off British Columbia and different diet, the ones in B.C. feeding on fish, the others on mammals. Some have even been known to drown baleen whales in order to eat their fins.)  He was kept in a small tank for several years with two dominant females (orcas are primarily matriarchal) and often tormented by them.  It was just a matter of time before Tilikum became what we might call psychotic and unpredictable.

One of the themes brought out in this book is the natural antipathy between those who believe zoos are the best way to see and learn about animals and those who think that keeping animals of high intelligence, and there is no doubt that whales and apes have very high intelligence, is not only unworthy of humans but detrimental to the animals themselves and that the only way to study and learn about them is in the wild where the animals can behave normally. There was even some speculation that emerged from the hearings after Tilikum killed Dawn Brancheau that institutions like Sea World and zoos have a vested interest in subtly portraying the dangers of nature.  Indeed one of Sea World’s major arguments for not returning their killer whales back to the wild was that they were safer penned up.  This argument morphs over into a more general one that nature is dangerous for humans as well so come see the animals in the zoo, please, where you won’t get hurt (and by the way buy a few t-shirts, mugs and pizza while you are there.)

There had been four deaths in the pools from interplay with orcas. Many others have been injured, several quite severely.  The hearings in Congress that ultimately resulted following Dawn’s death had to answer two vital questions: “ 1. Is captivity in an amusement park good for orcas: Is this the appropriate venue for killer whales to be held, and does it somehow benefit wild orcas and their ocean habitat, as the industry claims? 2. Is orca captivity good for society: Is it safe for trainers and truly educational for a public that pays to watch the whales perform what critics say are animal tricks akin to circus acts? Not surprisingly, people who support SeaWorld and other marine-themed entertainment parks (pro-caps in the lingo of this particular argument) answer affirmatively.”

There is little doubt these large animals are fascinating creatures with a sophisticated culture. Lots of information here on that. While the author’s sympathies clearly lie with those wishing to study animals in the wild, he does a good job of presenting both sides of the issue although he does focus primarily on those people like Naomi Rose, an orca expert and her evolution into anti-Seaworld activist.

One can sympathize with the Zoo proponents but that sympathy tends to waver in the face of their use of euphemisms and obfuscation in an attempt to make animal life at Sea World appear as “happy” as possible. As the great muckraker Upton Sinclair put it, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

Audiobook: James LeeBurke is a master. His writing is vivid, the characters well-drawn, and the plots intriguing.   Dave Robicheaux is an ex-New Orleans cop whose-partner, Dixie Lee, now a “lease-man” for an oil company thinks he has overheard two other lease men discussing burying a body. Unsure as to what he heard and what to do about it, he seeks Dave’s help. In the meantime Dave chain-whips a bad guy (he really should have known better) and the guy turns up dead so Dave is facing a murder charge. He’s been a homicide detective but apparently has little faith in their ability to solve the crime and find the real killer so he heads for Montana to sort things out  

where his murder charge is resolved (are you really surprised) in the midst of Native Americans fighting against a land hungry oil company (that’s probably a redundancy).

There was something a bit off about this novel.  Perhaps it was that Dave was no longer in Louisiana; perhaps it was the -- to my mind -- excessive guilt-ridden self-examination that seems more a plea for forgiveness from others than seeking to understand himself; perhaps it was the excessively slow cadence of the reader who I normally like very much (Will Patton);  perhaps it was the implausible plot and would you take your six-year-old daughter on a dangerous mission? or, perhaps it was that I didn’t get the same sense of place that usually pervades Burke’s Louisiana Robicheax novels. Then again it might have been the outrageous way he solves the case.  

Personally, had I been the social worker, there is no way I would ever have placed Alifair with Dave given the level of violence with which he surrounds himself.

But he does write beautifully.