Z#@-> T#@> The jury decided not to execute Smith and I suppose this should not
   -> T#@> come as much of a surprise as many of the jurors said they would hav
   -> T#@> alot of trouble sentencing anyone to die.  I would be one to agree w
   -> T#@> you though...

Z#@->  Yes, and once again I am flabbergassed by the justice system. Newsweek d
   ->  an article on it saying about 66% of polled Americans felt she should be
   ->  fried. Now, I would dearly love to know what that jury heard that convin
   ->  them to give her "life" in prison, as I would like to know why capital
   ->  punishment is on the books of 38 states and yet 90% or better of the
   ->  condemded are still alive?
   ->  ZED!

I believe there were two reasons she was not given the death penalty.
First, they probably felt that since she had tried to commit suicide
while in custody death would be preferable to HER.  By giving her life
in prison, or some reasonable facsimile, they were handing out a
stiffer penalty to her.  Second, (and this may not be a good reason) it
will be less expensive to the state to keep her locked up for life than
it would to exhaust the innumerable appeals to a death sentence.

This reason should be enough to ammend the appeals process to exclude
appeals based on procedure and limit them to appeals of evidence.  I.e.
if the evidence is there, no appeals on procedure.

KC  }
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 � OLX 2.1 TD � Artificial Intelligence: The other guy's opinion.