[Newspoetry] very strange story about drug use and capital punishment

[John Wason]

At 10:00 AM 05/16/2002 -0500, Editor-Within-Chief wrote:

>A judge sentences people to death, then is convicted of marijuana 
>possession.  The issue: was he stoned when he decided to sentence them to 
>death, and if so does that invalidate the sentence?  The more stoned you 
>are, the deeper the issues in this story seem to go ;)
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/national/16JUDG.html

I didn't read the story because the NY Times makes you jump through too many
hoops.  But in a slightly more serious vein, there are several US Supreme
Court decisions (since that spawn of Satan William Rehnquist attained power)
where the defense attorney or members of the jury were drunk or high or
asleep during the trial.  The Supreme Court has consistently held that it's
immaterial as long as the "weight of the evidence" is such that the accused
"would have been convicted anyway", or some such nonsense.  It's part of
what they've termed the "harmless error" rule.  I presume the same rule
would apply to a stoned or corrupt judge.  

John