And Justice For Some
Two weeks after being told they couldn’t execute a man for kidnapping a woman and throwing her to her death off a bridge, the State of Missouri has just executed a man for kidnapping a woman and throwing her to her death off a bridge.
I don’t mean to suggest that these two cases are anything like each other, mind you. For one thing, the two incidents involved different women, and probably different bridges, as well. For another, the guy they didn’t get to execute may have been mentally an adult at the time of the murder (recall his prescient observation that he would get away with the crime because of his age), but legally, he was 17 1/2. By contrast, the guy they did execute may have been mentally a 15 year old on a good day, but legally he was over 18, and that’s all that matters under the Consensus Amendment.
