The Indiana Supreme Court seems to be reinstating convictions a hell of a lot lately.

In a just criminal justice system, a system which required of judges the same consensus we require of jurors, an “acquittal” at any step of the appellate process would end the defendant’s Jeopardy.

It’s only natural for judges employed by the State to believe in the State and its works more than your average bear. I wonder whether, by the same psychological logic, judges invested with more power by the State are even bigger believers than judges invested with less.

Sometimes people write me and ask why the hell I’m not writing about story X, because it’s “right up your alley.” Usually this means that story X is about free speech, or nanny statism, or police abuse, or (not infrequently) some species of mordantly self-involved douchebaggery that readers associate with me.

Sometimes the answer is that I’m too busy. Often the answer is that I can’t think of an angle on the story that will allow me to say something about it that hasn’t been said better already by smarter people, and I am not in the mood for a mere heh indeed-style link.

And sometimes the answer is that the story inspires a white-hot impotent fury that would leave me unable to write anything but a string of epithets.

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