The law and the jungle

Even if we take into account that the person who did the report is for marijuana legalization, his conclusion that pot is now the nation's biggest cash crop is probably true, and I notice that the government official quoted doesn't dispute it. What is challenged by the government is this:

I'm sorry, but this is one set of victims I'm not able to work up a lot of sympathy for:

Death penalty foes have warned for years of the possibility that an inmate being executed by lethal injection could remain conscious, experiencing severe pain as he slowly dies.

That day may have arrived.

One of the biggest mass murderers of recent times is about to be loose among us again:

LANSING, Mich. - Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June, state Corrections spokesman Leo Lalonde said Wednesday.

To get out, Kevorkian promised he would not assist in any more suicides. Uh-huh. He can no more quit what he does than a child molester can.

A look inside the Indiana State Prison courtesy of an MSNBC interview with a documentary producer:

Contraband is a big problem at ISP.   It's amazing the things these guys in IA manage to uncover; everything from weapons to drugs, cell phones and even a home-rigged power drill that was apparently made by an inmate preparing an escape.  His plan was to drill through his cell wall.

Speaking of the Constitution, isn't it supposed to be the Bible from which the Supreme Court fashions its rulings? Justice Breyer doesn't think so:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer says the Supreme Court must promote the political rights of minorities and look beyond the Constitution's text when necessary to ensure that "no one gets too powerful."

I've always been a little unclear on the thinking behind "hate crime" laws. Until police develop a mind-reading tool, they really don't know what anyone is thinking. That means authorities can only punish phsyical manifestations of that thinking, such as intimidation or vandalism, which are already crimes. So the fact that Indiana is one of only five states without specific hate-crime laws doesn't necessarily make us backward.

Some people in Fort Wayne seem disinclined to agonize over the private lives of public figures. Steve Shine is, to some, a reviled Republican cheerleader, so any dirt that can be dished on him is a good thing, and any of us worry about the erosion of privacy are apologists for privilege, never mind the nuances. But if any want an example of legitimate reporting of someone's private life, here it is, a police officer accused of domestic abuse:

The city of Indianapolis has come up with an "innovative" way to fight crime. It apparently can't afford to beef up the police department, so it is putting surveillance cameras in "high crime areas":

Can anyone explain, really, how putting kids on school buses for an hour or more instead of letting them attend their neighborhood schools has been good for education? The irony is that this has been done in the name of "diversity," when the actual goal has been to make each school mirror, as much as possible, the makeup of the larger community. What's diverse about schools all being the same?

In the great Gary gun case of 1999, by which the city attempts to hold manufacturers and sellers liable for the misuse of weapons, I think the best opinion was rendered by Lake Superior Court Judge James Richards, who dismissed the Gary case in 2001, saying the city "cannot fault businesses beyond its jurisdiction for the crimes committed by others." But a judge has resuscitated the case, ruling that a federal law aimed at shielding the manufacturers and dealers from liability is unconstituti