Let those that I’ve cast aspersions upon gather their rocks and patiently wait to the end of the year.

It could quite possibly be the biggest moment in Internet History since the creation of “You Tube”. Mark your calendars, folks.

Anna, the papers are reading this blog, but my opinion doesn’t speak quite as loudly to them as the verdict of those 10 jurors choosing not to kill Quintero.

Michael, thank you for sharing news of your stroke. Recover quickly and fully. Meanwhile, can we at least agree that there are some viewpoints that are unworthy of respect? For example: that the Quintero jurors are “gutless idiots” for not answering the second special issue “no”?

AHCL, clearly you know racism when you see it (where the Hell did that post go, anyway?). Nothing wrong with being upset with the verdict. People shouldn’t kill cops, and we reflexively want to hurt people at least as badly as they hurt us. But you don’t think that answering the mitigation question “no” would have required some sort of bravery, do you?

I really don’t think it reflects very well on you when you snipe at other lawyers from the cover of anonymity. What would your mother think? Danalyn is not the lawyer I would choose to defend me if I had a shot at an acquittal, but if the government had me dead to rights and was trying to stick a needle in my arm she’d be at the top of my list. She is a one-trick pony who keeps the government from killing people; she did so in this case against what we all thought were extraordinarily long odds.

Your understanding of Chuck’s opposition to LWOP is incorrect. In ’05 he opposed LWOP as a replacement for life wit’. Not that the position you revisionistically ascribe to him would be any more reasonable — why shouldn’t a capital jury have a wider range to consider?

Jigmeister, I agree that Quintero would probably have been sentenced to death had LWOP not been an option.

Michael, interesting point that the HCDA has contributed to the public’s shifting attitudes toward death. Thank God we haven’t sent any innocent people to death, right?

SC, do you have a point there somewhere? Would you prefer we took our VI Amendment and went home?

Michael, the prosecutors won too: justice was done.

PJ, still the primal instinct to hurt those who have hurt us lives on.

Tarian, if I recall correctly jury selection is part of the trial. In fact, it might be a kinda important part of the trial, but I’m not going the one to educate you about how a death penalty case should be defended in the 21st Century. David Lane and DLR are the ones to go to for that education, and I don’t think they’ll tell you.

Ron, funny thing about TBI: it can cause personality changes without being visible on a scan.

Tarian, you should recognize that “we do control something important: our free will” is an article of faith, rather than a statement of fact. You believe it (a) because you want to believe it, and (b) because it seems that way to you, just as the ancient Greeks believed that Apollo rode his chariot across the sky from east to west every day. (I keep wanting to write that post, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a book rather than a blog post.)

There’s been some mention here of Christianity. Can you shed some light on what you think Jesus would have done in the jurors’ position, and why?

Bill, I can’t fathom how a jury can find a person will be a danger to society when locked in prison for the rest of his life. But I’d rather give the jury two questions to answer, so that they have two chances to spare my client’s life.

PJ, questioning what death will accomplish isn’t done in execution-world. It obviously serves to “show how we value life” or “hold someone accountable” or “give the dead guy’s life meaning.”

That you, a lawyer, think an accomplished and recognized academic is a “fraud” is only a testament to how deep the rot of anti-intellectualism has penetrated our society. You might prefer an HPD crime lab “expert,” but I’ll take a real scientist any day of the week. His methods and results have been peer reviewed and are accepted by the scientific community in his field. The bottom line is that your assessment of the scientific evidence carries no weight.

You wrote: “Quintero’s choice should have landed him on death row.”

Why? What would it have accomplished? It’s time to take the death penalty off the table altogether. The loved ones of murder victims will always be pressured to support the highest legal penalty available as an expression of the strength of their love and measure of their loss. If vengeance killings are completely off the table, then victims’ families can support and feel vindicated by such extreme punishments as life without parole, which, as “the ultimate penalty,” would no longer be considered “getting away with it.” Do you really think the level of hatred and vehemence spewing from the UGOI at the Chronicle forums is reflective of a healthy society? Verily, Jesus would roll over in his grave (if he had one, that is).

Stop making sense.

Do you realize the irony of the last sentence in your last paragraph? Yes, we can control the choices we make in response to our circumstances. That is why we should not murder Quintero.

I’m sure that’s what the Chronicle said, but this guy admitted on cross examination that his opinion was based on his own theory and involved comparing Quintero’s brain to a sampling of “normal” brains that consisted of — how many? — 22, that’s TWENTY-TWO so-called normal brains. That’s not a very big sample for scientific purposes. This theory he advanced was his own, untested idea (which, not-coincidentally, has made him very valuable as an expert witness in criminal prosecutions). No control group, no way of testing the validity. Again, he admitted on cross that MRI’s and other scans of Quintero’s brain showed no sign of irregularity or injury. So his opinion were tenuous and speculative at best…fabrications at worst.

Had the State offered that kind of junk science, a 702 hearning would have kept it out, and if not, the case would have been reversed for admitting it. But out of an abundance of caution, the judge let it in for the defense. If the prosecutors had tried that crap, the defense team would have been screaming to high heaven about medical fraud. But here they advanced it as if it were hard science. And don’t tell me they’re just lawyers, not doctors, and don’t know any better. You don’t need an MD to smell BS.

There’s been some discussion of late on this blog (and yours, too, Ron) about determinism, free will, etc. We are all different, are born different, and experience different events during our lives. There’s no denying that some folks have the deck stacked against them early on in terms of opportunities. But in a world where we control almost nothing, we do control something important: Our free will. We can’t control our circumstances, but we can control how we respond to those circumstances and the choices we make. Quintero’s choice should have landed him on death row.