Tuesday, March 24, 2020
In other news...
While everyone was obsessing (appropriately) about COVID-19 yesterday, something pretty remarkable happened in Colorado-- it became the 22nd state in the union to free itself from the death penalty, and Governor Jared Polis (pictured above) commuted the death sentences of the three men on the state's death row.
For a while, people hoped that the death penalty would be swept away in a dramatic Supreme Court ruling (and it was, in fact, in 1972, but that proved temporary). Instead, though, it is fading away, dying of a thousand cuts, including fiscal prudence, the problem of innocent people exonerated from death row, and flagging support among citizens who don't see the point anymore.
Once a majority of the states reject the practice, that dramatic moment in the Supreme Court may come. But the slog to get there has been long and hard.
