When asked for a newspaper-safe synonym for "chickenshit," the best I could come up with was "disrespectful."

I spent a good part of the day today watching the hearing in Judge Fine's court on the constitutionality under the Eighth Amendment of Texas's death penalty procedure; read my tweets on the subject (hashtag #VIII) here.The issue, as I discussed here, is whether death-penalty practice in Texas creates such a significant risk of executing an innocent person that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Elaine Sharp is quoted in Lane Wallace’s shallow and amateurish Are All Murderers Mentally Ill? article (which somehow made it into the Atlantic):You see, I truly believe that murderers are mentally ill. … Their brains don’t work like the rest of ours do. To deliberately kill someone requires crossing a profound boundary. Most of us couldn’t do it. We couldn’t even think about it. But they can.

Here is a list of the expert and other opinion witnesses the defense intends to present in the hearing, beginning Monday, on the constitutionality under the Eighth Amendment of Texas's death penalty procedure: State v. Green Hearing Expert Testimony Gerry Goldstein (who says that the criminal defense lawyer in a death penalty case has to be like a cockroach—"all over the government's shit") and Barry Scheck will

The government wants the job of dealing with bullies; it doesn't want our kids to learn to stand up for themselves or others because it wants a monopoly on lawful force. But society needs people who stand up for others, even—no, especially—when the government is the bully.Government wants people to depend on the state for their safety. Even if it succeeds and trains the rest of us

This (via Brian Rogers, Chron.com) is what I'll be watching when I'm not otherwise occupied in the next couple of weeks: the hearing in the 177th District Court on whether Texas's death penalty procedure violates the Eight Amendment because it creates a significant risk that an innocent person will be executed.Signed by capital defense veteran Dick Burr, the motion filed by the defense provides a thorough and

Dear "Whatever it Takes" folks,I have often said that a word for people like you who expect the government to keep them safe is "victims." Here is a good functional explanation of why:It’s one of Robert’s Rules: When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. (I didn’t make that one up, but it’s one of the Rules nonetheless.)So I’m always stumped by the credulous, even irrational,

Dear submissive "Whatever it Takes" subjects:TSA is grooming your children. (Via Ted Frank's TSA Abuse blog, which I keep handy in case my blood pressure drops precipitously.)Love,Mark.p.s. TSA would never hire a pedophile, would they?

So I’ve written a bit about TSA, about scope-and-grope, about the minute risk of air travel, and about the popular “whatever it takes” response to complaints about the TSA’s invasion of our liberty and our privacy.So what does any of this have to do with the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering?

A common refrain among those who are happy trading a quick grope or some nude pictures for permission to travel about this once-free land is, “if you don’t like it, don’t fly.” To them, we are “thin-skinned” because we don’t want our children leered at by TSA agents of dubious provenance. Those of us who refuse to allow the government to have its way with us are