On one of these cases, I was the last juror to hold out. It was like "12 Angry Men" in reverse: "12 Hungry Men And Women." It was 5pm, I wanted dinner and so did everyone else, and I didn't want to bring 11 other people back again tomorrow. So I took the easy way out, as did 10 other people.
On our way out, the DA thanked us sarcastically and noted that the defendant had two prior DUIs. If we'd given him a third, she pointed out, there might actually have been consequences. As it was... I live in slight terror of glancing at a newspaper and noting that he's erased someone's six-year-old, just because I was hungry and wanted to go home for dinner.
To put it slightly differently: a few months ago, a woman in SF suffered the death penalty. She was innocent. She just wanted to look at the sea lions, or something. Unfortunately, San Francisco had sentenced her to death.
The executioner was an illegal-immigrant drifter who'd been pulled out of ICE's deportation pipeline by "sanctuary city" policies originally intended for intellectuals fleeing El Salvador in the early 1980s. A couple of days before, he'd smashed the window on a car and stolen a gun, which he was using (according to him) to shoot at sea lions. A bullet
Is her death an accident? How about Glossip's? I know of one billionaire who cares a lot about Kathryn Steinle. I know of another billionaire who cares a lot about Richard Glossip.
It seems to me both these deaths involve the action of the State, in choosing to allow a human life to be taken -- in one case intentionally based on the determination of guilt, in another case negligently, based on -- honestly, I couldn't even tell you what this level of carelessness is based on.
Supposing Glossip is innocent -- which doesn't seem terribly likely once we read the piece above, which is far more detailed and down-to-earth than the emotional appeals that triggered pg. Then, his death would be an accident, wouldn't it? The State did not set out to kill an innocent man. It didn't set out to kill an innocent women, but it did that as well -- with far less thinking than went into Glossip's case.
Suppose our other billionaire, the one we adore here instead of laughing at for his ridiculous hair, had chosen to care about the other human life in question. Or, more to the point, the next 1 or 10 or 100 that might be sacrificed in this absurd and cavalier fashion. What would your response have been?