[B Knotts]

I saw him talk about this a while back. He's not anti-death penalty. He's anti-death-penalty-as-it-is-currently-administered. He does not have faith in the compentency or honesty of the prosecutors, investigators, forensic pathologists, etc., who are supposed to ensure that only the guilty face the ultimate penalty.

After reading about some of the sloppy work being done in the criminal justice system, I cannot disagree with him.

[Kevin Curry]

He does not have faith in the compentency or honesty of the prosecutors, investigators, forensic pathologists, etc., who are supposed to ensure that only the guilty face the ultimate penalty.

Strange that he would leave out the jurors in his broadbrush condemnation. Or did you do that?

Fuhrman's opinion is likely colored largely by his negative experience in O.J. trial. There, the incompetence of the system led to the acquittal of a man who should be on death row today. Still smarting from that injustice, it isn't hard for Fuhrman to take double umbrage to what he believes is the injustice of that same system executing a possibly innocent person. After all, an incompetent system arguably is incompetent in all ways--not just one.

But I believe he overstates his case. His opinion is emotion driven--not logic and facts driven. No criminal justice system can deliver justice perfectly. What it can do is deliver heavy-handed injustice to the point that no one trusts it any longer and the social order founders on the reef of popular rebellion. Or, it can be so weak and equivocal that no one trusts it to protect their interests and the social order crashes on the rocks of anomie.

Neither condition is healthy.