What were they thinking?

I often question the wisdom of voters, especially so since the election of 2008. But I cannot imagine why anyone in his right mind would have voted for State District Judge Kevin Fine.

I had never heard of Fine until last month. That's when he decided that the death penalty is unconstitutional in the case of John Edward Green. Never mind that the Supreme Court, instead of saying it must not be used, has made numerous decisions on when it may not be used. If the court has said it cannot be used in circumstance A, then the assumption is that it is not prohibited in circumstance B.

At any rate, Fine says it is safe to assume that innocent people have been executed. If I were relying on that, I'd have some concrete examples to back up what I was saying -- "Look at Mr. Jones. He was executed and we later found out Mr. Smith really did it." But he didn't do that. Why? Because he doesn't know of any.

The decision is almost certain to be overturned on appeal, so why do I care? Well, for one thing, it will cost Harris County and the State of Texas a good deal of money to pursue this thing. And I care about the victims' families. John Edward Green was convicted of murdering a 34-year-old woman in her own driveway. He also shot her sister, critically wounding her. Oh -- and he did it in front of their children.

Back to the electorate. They voted him in. He is heavily tattooed. He is a "recovering" alcoholic and cocaine user. And we have this kind of man legislating from the bench.

"Judge draws fire for faulting death penalty." The Dallas Morning News; March 6, 2010; p. 2A.