One reason it's so hard to get a death sentence carried out is that the system has come to value process over substantive justice.  Cases drag on for years despite the fact that, far more often than not, no rational person seriously believes there is any chance the defendant is factually innocent, or that his crime does not deserve the most severe legal punishment.

Every defendant deserves due process, obviously; but no defendant is due year after year of niggling appeals, and that's what we have now.

I thus report, courtesy of my friend John Hinderaker at Powerline, three recent instances in which substantive justice got served right quick. Where government cannot or will not protect its citizens, they will protect themselves  --  a proposition few would doubt.  And when our legal system comes to understand that the death penalty is a form of societal self-protection, as well as a just punishment for sadistic murder, the balance between procedure and substance will shift.

The story is here.