Kent has posted over the last couple of days about the flurry of litigation concerning the forthcoming  --  or, now, probably not so forthcoming  --  Brown execution. 

I will not attempt to summarize how things got to where they are, first because Kent has done a better job than I could, and second, because it's just too annoying.

The law should speak with authority and confidence.  It should do so all the more in a case, like this one, where there is no doubt of factual guilt, the crime is horrendous, and the defendant has had years to appeal every issue under the sun.  A system that interminably questions itself to the point of paralysis is not living up to "America's highest values," or whatever the Leftist catch-phrase is.  It's making a joke of itself.

Two things in particular should be borne in mind.  One is that in supposedly barbaric America, all this comes about out of a humanitarian, but now run amok, desire to seek the most pain-free method of execution.  Actual barbarism should be made of sterner stuff (and is).  Second, the very people most responsible for creating a system that endlessly hashes out every detail, no matter how niggling, will be the first to say that the current episode vindicates their view of the death-penalty-as-circus.  And, though I hate to say it, they'll have a point, because the rest of us failed to take the action needed to prevent it from degenerating to this point.

I'll be the first to confess that I have no sure-fire suggestion for preventing the sort of thing we have seen unfold in this case.  The willingness of courts to accommodate every indulgence, and of legislatures to let them, seems to be buried deep in the culture.  We are reminded, now and for not the first time, that we had best dig it out.