Demagogue

I've posted a few times about the rather bizarre death penalty case in California in which the prosecutor now claims to have excluded Jews from the jury--bad enough--on the instructions of the judge--worse. The latest article has links to earlier events, for those who'd like to catch up. I just wanted to note a couple of things that jumped out from this article.

The prosecutor, Jack Quatman, claims that defendant Fred Freeman's defense lawyers were incompetent. Of course, if they were incompetent, that could be a basis for overturning the conviction and death sentence. Thus, the defense lawyers are in a position that is familiar to anyone who follows death penalty jurisprudence: although their professional fitness is being questioned, they feel an obligation not to defend themselves.

"Frankly, it's very advantageous for Mr. Freeman if I was incompetent," [defense lawyer] Strellis said. "So I'm certainly not going to argue with it."

The second thing I noticed was Quatman's account of why he came forward now.

"I'm a pro-death-penalty guy. I believe we need to fire up the death penalty system and get it going," Quatman said. "However, on the Fred Freeman case…I felt badly about it because of what I felt was horrible representation on the other side...."

"I thought about it [coming forward] for a long time," he said. "I knew what the possible ramifications were…but I think it was the right thing to do.

"If we're going to kill Fred Freeman, maybe we ought to get it squeaky clean."