[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., LA., ARK., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 5









ALABAMA:

Prosecutors Will 'Answer To God' For Putting Innocent Man On Death Row



Anthony Ray Hinton, 58, spent half his life on Alabama's death row, sentenced 
to die for 2 1985 murders that for decades he insisted he did not commit.

Over 28 years, the outside world changed while Hinton spent his days largely in 
a 5-by-8-foot prison cell. Children grew up. His mother died. His hair turned 
gray. Inmates he knew were escorted off to the electric chair or the 
lethal-injection gurney.

He was set free Friday after new ballistics tests contradicted the only 
evidence - an analysis of crime-scene bullets - that connected Hinton to the 
slayings.

"They had every intention of executing me for something I didn't do," Hinton 
said outside the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham.

Friends and family members rushed to embrace Hinton after his lawyers escorted 
him outside of the jail on Good Friday morning. His sisters wiped tears, saying 
"Thank you, Lord," as they wrapped their arms around their brother.

Equal Justice Initiative director Bryan Stevenson, who waged a 16-year fight 
for Hinton's release, said while the day was joyous, the case was tragic.

"Not only did he lose his life, he lived a life in solitary confinement on 
death row, condemned in a 5-by-8 cell where the state was trying to kill him 
every day," Stevenson said.

Hinton was convicted of killing 2 fast- food-restaurant workers - John Davidson 
and Thomas Wayne Vason - during separate 1985 robberies at Mrs. Winner's and 
Captain D's restaurants in Birmingham. Investigators became interested in him 
after a survivor at a third restaurant robbery picked Hinton out of a photo 
lineup.

The only evidence linking him to the slayings were bullets that state experts 
then said had markings that matched a .38-caliber revolver that belonged to 
Hinton's mother. There were no fingerprints or eyewitness testimony.

Stevenson said a defense analysis during appeal showed that bullets did not 
match the gun. He then tried in vain for years to persuade the state of Alabama 
to re-examine the evidence.

A breakthrough came last year when he won a new trial after the U.S. Supreme 
Court ruled Hinton's trial counsel "constitutionally deficient." His defense 
lawyer wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to rebut 
the state's case. The only expert willing to take the job at that price - a 
1-eyed civil engineer with little ballistics training who admitted he had 
trouble operating the microscope - was obliterated on cross-examination.

The Jefferson County district attorney's office on Wednesday moved to drop the 
case after their forensics experts were unable to match crime-scene bullets to 
the gun.

Stevenson called Hinton's conviction a "case study" in what is wrong with the 
American justice system.

"We have a system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty then if you 
are poor and innocent and this case proves it. We have a system that is 
compromised by racial bias and this case proves it. We have a system that 
doesn't do the right thing when the right thing is apparent," Stevenson said.

"Prosecutors should have done this testing years ago."

The Alabama attorney general's office declined to comment.

Chief Deputy District Attorney John R. Bowers, Jr. said 3 experts with the 
Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences examined the bullets ahead of the 
anticipated retrial in the case.

Bowers said all 3 reached the same conclusion: They couldn't conclusively 
determine whether or not any of those bullets were fired from the revolver 
taken from Hinton's home, or even if they had been fired from the same gun.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Hinton is the 152nd person 
exonerated from death row since 1973 and the 6th in Alabama.

As he left the jail, Hinton said he would pray for the victims' families as he 
has done for the past 30 years. They have suffered a "miscarriage of justice" 
as well, he said.

He had less kind words for those involved in his conviction.

"When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don't 
have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who played a part 
in sending me to death row, you will answer to God," Hinton said.

Hinton planned to put flowers on his mother's grave. After that comes the 
adjustment to the modern world after spending nearly 1/2 of his life in 
solitary confinement.

"The world is a very different place than what it was 30 years ago," Stevenson 
said. "There was no Internet. There was no email. I gave him an iPhone this 
morning. He's completely mystified by that."

(source: Associated Press)

************************

Does Alabama have the guts to put grandma to death?



Death penalty advocates in Alabama are going to have to put up or shut up now.

The case of Joyce Hardin Garrard will either reinforce the authenticity of 
their firmly held beliefs or expose them as 2-faced blowhards.

Garrard was found guilty on March 26 of capital murder in the death of her 
9-year-old granddaughter, Savannah Hardin, by forcing the child to run around 
her backyard until she literally dropped dead from exhaustion in 2012.

Savannah's alleged crime was eating a candy bar and then lying about it. To 
punish her, Grandma made the girl run for hours without a break.

Garrard screamed at Savannah to keep running while carrying sticks and pieces 
of firewood.

The prosecution did not recommend the death penalty. Garrard's defense 
attorneys did not push for a sentence of life without parole.

But the jurors split on what penalty Garrard should receive. 5 wanted her to be 
executed. 7 preferred a life sentence.

How could this be? This seems counterintuitive in Alabama, where capital 
punishment is popular and is widely regarded as an effective deterrent to 
crime.

People who have argued loudly for executions in prior murder cases seem to be 
shrinking from sending Grandma to her final resting place, even a Grandma who 
abused her 9-year-old granddaughter to death.

3 other women are on death row in Alabama, all for killing their own children. 
Are they somehow more worthy of execution than Garrard?

Prosecutor Jimmie Harp said he would respect the jury's decision and not push 
for the death penalty.

But in talking with a local television reporter, Harp mentioned Garrard's 
gender and lack of a prior criminal record as mitigating factors in the case.

Interestingly, he did not mention her age. She is 50 years old, somewhat young 
for a grandmother. Does Harp think she's too young to be put to death?

Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated, Alabama judges have 
overridden jury verdicts in murder cases 111 times. In 101 of those cases, the 
judge threw out the jury's recommended life sentence and replaced it with 
death.

That's what might happen in the Garrard case. Judge Billy Ogletree will make 
that decision on May 11.

I'm not arguing for or against the death penalty in this case. But I'm not 
surprised that people who would be demanding the death penalty if the killer 
were male, young or black are waffling when it comes to a 50-year-old white 
woman.

Ironically, these are the same people who are dismissive of anti-death penalty 
activists when they bemoan the unfair and uneven application of capital 
punishment.

This is what comes of slavishly dogmatic adherence to a philosophy without some 
rational assessment of the pros and cons.

In 1999, talk show host Phil Donahue sarcastically proposed airing a 
state-sponsored execution on live television to find out whether Americans 
would have the guts to watch what they say they want to happen.

How many people in Alabama have the guts to stick a needle in Grandma's arm?

(source: Column, Gina Logue----Murfreesboro Post)








LOUISIANA:

Capital punishment a Caddo Parish cottage industry in Louisiana



If it weren't for Caddo Parish, capital punishment would have been largely 
phased out in Louisiana by now.

And Caddo largely owes its pre-eminence to just 2 prosecutors, Dale Cox and 
Hugo Holland. Of the 8 death sentences handed down in the last 5 years, Cox 
takes credit for 4 and Holland for 2. Such numbers suggest they approach their 
grisly duty with relish. Indeed Cox, who is chief assistant district attorney 
up there, recently said it is a shame that executions aren't more frequent.

The occasion for that heartwarming pronouncement was a recent letter to the 
editor in the Shreveport Times from Marty Stroud, who, 30 years ago, occupied 
the same position in the DA???s office as Cox does now. In that capacity, 
Stroud managed to have Glenn Ford convicted of 1st-degree murder.

Fortunately for Ford, and for Stroud, the state is much better at imposing the 
death sentence than at carrying it out. Ford was released from death row last 
year after new evidence established his innocence. In his letter, Stroud called 
for the abolition of the death penalty, calling it "barbaric," and apologized 
to Ford, who, he averred, deserved to be paid for all his years in hellish 
confinement.

Several days later, a state judge denied Ford's request for compensation. Not 
that it will make much difference to Ford, because he is dying of lung cancer 
and is probably way past expecting a fair shake in Louisiana.

It took Cox 10 months to sign off on Ford's release after evidence surfaced 
showing the conviction was a mistake. While Ford may have regarded that delay 
as excessive, Cox is evidently a patient man. "Every effort was made" to verify 
the new information, he said, suggesting that Ford was out of there pretty much 
in a jiffy. "It concerned me the most that we handled it timely. Don't sit on 
this another year or 2. You can outthink yourself on this stuff," Cox said.

While Stroud's views on the death penalty have come full circle, so have Cox's. 
It is a long time since he was opposed to it, however, and he is not about to 
change his mind again just because Ford has joined Louisiana's long line of 
exonerated death row inmates.

Cox agrees with Stroud that capital punishment is "state-assisted revenge." But 
whereas that is one reason Stroud is for abolition, it is precisely why Cox 
takes the opposite view. Cox does not believe the death penalty is a deterrent, 
because we allow the condemned to linger too long. He just thinks society is 
entitled to take its revenge and is being short-changed these days.

"I think we need to kill more people," he said. He believes "we're going the 
wrong way with the death penalty; we need it more than ever, and we're using it 
less now." He and Holland have certainly done their best to keep the executions 
coming.

Holland is no longer on the DA's staff in Caddo. He and another assistant, Leah 
Hall, who was also on the prosecution team in 4 of the successful capital 
cases, were fired in 2012 after obtaining a slew of automatic rifles from the 
Federal Property Assistance Agency to be used in the course of highly hazardous 
- but imaginary - joint operations with police and sheriff's departments.

Holland and Hall remain in the prosecution game in various Louisiana 
jurisdictions. Hall last year pulled a gun on a colleague in the Claiborne 
Parish DA's office. Holland is currently under investigation by the state bar's 
Disciplinary Board for failing to turn over evidence favorable to David Brown, 
1 of 5 Angola lifers tried in 2012 for the murder of a guard. Brown's death 
sentence was thrown out late last year.

Cox, meanwhile, remains much possessed by death in Caddo Parish and is fond of 
invoking Scripture when urging juries to show no mercy. Such is his dedication 
that he is sometimes accused of dirty pool; when the state Supreme Court hears 
the appeal of Lamondre Tucker next month, for instance, attorneys are expected 
to argue that Cox tainted the sentencing phase with a false account of an 
earlier shooting.

It is a life-or-death issue such as the court would seldom confront, if Caddo 
Parish weren't so out of step.

(source: The New Orleans Advocate)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas law about the death penalty creates confusion



The Arkansas Governor signs into law new protocols for carrying out the death 
penalty.

However, there's some confusion.

"Without question, there's going to be litigation," said attorney, Bill James.

James, a Little Rock attorney, has defended around ten death penalty cases and 
counts himself among the lawyers who'd like to see capital punishment gone.

"There are some very smart lawyers against the death penalty that are going to 
do everything they can to stop it," said James.

After legislation passed setting new death penalty protocols, the Attorney 
General's Office came up with a list of 8 death row inmates who've exhausted 
their legal options and are ready to be executed.

"There's nothing about what the Legislature has done that's going to stop the 
litigation," said James.

One of the main points of contention will be the drugs used for the lethal 
injection.

New legislation gives the Arkansas Department of Correction options of using a 
barbiturate or a 3 drug cocktail.

The Attorney General's Office says it's waiting on ADC to pick which one it'll 
use before sending the list of 8 to the Governor to set execution dates.

However, ADC says it's waiting for the Attorney's General's Office to review 
new legislation and advise on how to proceed.

As the state stumbles to find its way forward on this controversial issue, 
death penalty opponents are hoping something stops it.

"That would certainly be our fear now that we would start seeing executions 
carried out in the state of Arkansas," said Stephen Copley.

Copley is the Chair of the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The new legislation also contains a clause granting suppliers of lethal 
injection drugs to act anonymously.

(source: arklatexhomepage.com)

*****************

New Protocol Created For Lethal Injections



A new law passed by the legislature sets protocols for carrying out the death 
penalty in Arkansas.

Many, including the Arkansas Department of Corrections, are concerned about 
potential lawsuits as the state moves forward with lethal injections.

One of the main points of contention will be the drugs used for the lethal 
injection.

The new legislation gives the Arkansas Department of Correction options of 
using a barbiturate or a 3-drug cocktail.

The attorney general's office says it's waiting on ADC to pick which one it 
will use before sending the list of 8 to the governor to set execution dates.

But ADC says it's waiting for the attorney general's office to review the 
legislation and advise on how to proceed.

"We are aware that defense attorneys already have drafted a lawsuit that they 
plan to file when this bill is enacted," ADC spokeswoman Cathy Frye said in an 
email Friday. "We therefore have no immediate plans to develop a protocol."

As the state stumbles to find its way forward on this controversial issue, 
death penalty opponents are hoping something stops it.

"That would certainly be our fear now that we would start seeing executions 
carried out in the state of Arkansas," said Stephen Copley, chair of the 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The new legislation also contains a clause granting anonymity to suppliers of 
lethal injection drugs. However, the ADC still may have trouble finding them.

Many drug companies refuse to sell for use in executions, and this week the 
American Pharmacists Association told members no to sell for that purpose.

(source: localmemphis.com)








WASHINGTON:

Accused killer of 2 in Everett waiting for prosecutor's decision



A man accused of gunning down 2 people outside an Everett house won't know 
until June whether Snohomish County prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

Tye Patrick Fleischer's attorneys have until late May to provide information to 
Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe to persuade him not to seek 
their client's execution.

Fleischer, 37, is charged with 2 counts of aggravated murder and 1 count of 
attempted 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors allege that Fleischer opened fire on 
Feb. 13 and shot 3 people in the driveway of a house in the 2400 block of 75th 
Street SE.

The house has been the site of 2 other deadly shootings since 2008.

Kevin Odneal, who lived in the home with his mother, and Irene Halverson were 
killed. A 2nd woman was shot in the pelvis and survived the gunfire. 
Prosecutors alleged that Fleischer ambushed the 3 and later confessed to being 
responsible for the violence.

"OK, so I am a junkie. I got clean. My kids deserve a better father. I am just 
taking a couple of pieces of (expletive) that (expletive) hurt and kill people 
out while I'm doing it because I know these people really well and I know these 
people have done it," Fleischer allegedly told a 911 dispatcher after the 
shooting.

Detectives believe Fleischer, a convicted felon, was good friends with the 
34-year-old woman who survived the shooting. She and Odneal, 50, were in a 
relationship. Halverson, 42, had stopped by the house shortly before the 
gunfire.

Odneal had been at the center of numerous drug and stolen-property 
investigations. Detectives were at the home in December investigating an 
illegal chop-shop operation.

Fleischer surrendered to police at Forest Park after they reportedly talked him 
out of killing himself. They found a semi-automatic 9mm handgun in his van.

If Fleischer is convicted as charged, the only possible punishments are life 
behind bars or execution.

Roe has said a moratorium on the death penalty imposed by Gov. Jay Inslee will 
not play in his decision.

(source: heraldnet.com)








USA:

Cost of Colorado shooting case top $2.2 million before trial



Public spending to investigate and prosecute Colorado theater shooting 
defendant James Holmes has surpassed $2.2 million, weeks before opening 
statements in his trial, according to documents obtained by The Associated 
Press.

That figure does not include how much it has cost to defend Holmes, who is 
represented by the Office of the State Public Defender because he cannot afford 
private attorneys.

The number is neither complete nor exorbitant, said Hollis Whitson, a Denver 
defense attorney who specializes in appellate law and who has studied the costs 
of a Colorado death penalty case in terms of days spent in court. But, she 
added, tallying the total cost of a death penalty case in dollars is difficult 
if not impossible.

"In order to have a death penalty trial, even if you're never going to execute 
a single person, there's an enormous cost to maintaining the machinery of 
death," which includes expert witnesses, specialists, private attorneys and 
others involved.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of killing 12 
people and injuring 70 on July 20, 2012. Jury selection began in January, and 
opening statements are set for April 27.

Holmes' lawyers acknowledge he was the gunman, but they say he was in the grips 
of a psychotic episode. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Officials in the Denver suburb of Aurora, where the massacre occurred, say they 
have spent more than $928,500 on the case. That includes more than $517,000 in 
overtime pay for police and other city employees.

John Schneebeck, business manager for the Aurora Police Department, said 
Wednesday that the total includes other city departments, but he said a list of 
those departments and a breakdown of their share wasn't available.

More than $200,000 of the overtime was for police officers who responded to the 
theater and to Holmes' apartment, where explosives were found, he said. The 
U.S. Department of Justice reimbursed that expense, Schneebeck said.

Prosecutors previously said they had incurred more than $920,000 in costs, not 
including salaries, which would have been paid anyway. Court officials have 
said they have spent $435,000, mostly on courtroom security.

The $2.2 million figure highlights a debate over whether Holmes' public 
defenders should have to disclose their costs. A bill to require public 
defenders to reveal such costs failed recently in the Colorado Legislature.

Public defenders are rarely required to release those costs, according to the 
National Association of Public Defense. They cite attorney-client privilege and 
argue that disclosure would unfairly tip prosecutors about how much is being 
spent on expert witnesses and investigative services.

The office of Colorado Public Defender Doug Wilson denies open-records requests 
for almost any information, not just inquiries about specific cases, according 
to state Democratic Rep. Rhonda Fields and Republican Rep. Polly Lawrence, who 
sponsored the failed disclosure bill.

Wilson's office currently has an $83 million operating budget to cover 160,000 
cases, according to its website, which does not provide further details. The 
office has cited a gag order, attorney-client privilege and state Supreme Court 
rules for declining to disclose its expenses to the AP.

The FBI and the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department have refused to release 
their expenses in the case. The FBI said releasing its costs could interfere 
with an active case. Sheriff David Walcher cited security reasons, noting 
Holmes is still being held at the county jail.

Other federal, state and local agencies have spent at least $1.6 million in 
costs directly attributable to the Holmes case, according to records released 
by the agencies.

Costs for the state judiciary system include grants for courtroom security; 
printing and mailing; office equipment; and 10 new courtroom chairs to 
accommodate the 12 jurors and 12 alternates who will hear the case.

(source: Associated Press)

**************************

Justice Kennedy's Plea to Congress



Members of the Supreme Court rarely speak publicly about their views on the 
sorts of issues that are likely to come before them. So it was notable when 
Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer sat before a House appropriations 
subcommittee recently and talked about the plight of the American criminal 
justice system.

Justice Kennedy did not mince his words. "In many respects, I think it's 
broken," he said.

It was a good reminder of the urgency of the problem, and a stark challenge to 
a Congress that remains unable to pass any meaningful sentencing reform, 
despite the introduction of multiple bipartisan bills over the past 2 years.

The main topic of the subcommittee hearing was the Supreme Court's budget, but 
a question on prison overcrowding from Representative Steve Womack, Republican 
of Arkansas, gave Justice Kennedy a chance to lay out his views.

"The corrections system is one of the most overlooked, misunderstood 
institutions we have in our entire government," he said. He chastised the legal 
profession for being focused only on questions of guilt and innocence, and not 
what comes after. "We have no interest in corrections," he said. "Nobody looks 
at it."

That is not entirely fair; many lawyers and legal scholars have devoted their 
careers to studying the phenomenon of mass incarceration in America and to 
improving intolerable prison conditions. But Justice Kennedy was right that all 
too often decisions about sentencing and corrections are made without 
meaningful consideration of their long-term costs and benefits, or of their 
effect on the millions of people who spend decades behind bars.

"This idea of total incarceration just isn't working," he said. "And it's not 
humane."

Justice Kennedy has often talked about human dignity in his nearly 3 decades on 
the court, and that principle figured into his assessment of one of the most 
widely used control techniques in modern American prisons: solitary 
confinement. The practice "literally drives men mad," he said, describing 1 
case the justices heard recently involving a man who had been held in isolation 
for 25 years.

One obvious way to end this practice would be for the court to ban it under the 
Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Justice 
Kennedy - whose regular role as the swing vote on a closely divided court gives 
him tremendous power - has a mixed record on that amendment. Several times he 
has voted to uphold breathtakingly long sentences for nonviolent crimes. For 
example, in 2 2003 cases, he joined the 5-member majority that let stand 
sentences of 25 years to life and 50 years to life for men convicted in 
California of thefts totaling a few hundred dollars.

Justice Kennedy's response to such manifestly unjust results is that fixing 
prison sentences is the job of lawmakers, not the courts. But that too easily 
absolves the justices of their constitutional responsibility. The four justices 
dissenting in the California cases argued that those grossly disproportionate 
sentences violated the Eighth Amendment.

In more recent years, Justice Kennedy has increasingly invoked the amendment in 
sentencing cases, as he did in writing the 2008 decision prohibiting the death 
penalty as a punishment for child rape, and in 2010 and 2012 when he voted to 
bar sentences of life without parole for juveniles in most circumstances. He 
also relied on it in a 2011 decision ordering California to reduce overcrowding 
in its prisons, a condition that threatened inmates??? physical and mental 
health.

Justice Breyer, who before joining the court helped design the modern federal 
sentencing guidelines in the 1980s, told the committee of his own concerns 
about the justice system, and in particular was sharply critical of mandatory 
minimum sentences. Such sentences, he told the representatives, are "a terrible 
idea."

The justices were right to lay these issues directly at Congress's door. They 
can accomplish only so much on their own. Meanwhile, states from Texas to 
California to New York to Mississippi have been reforming their prisons and 
their sentencing laws for several years now, with overwhelmingly positive 
results. Now it is Congress's turn to reform the unjustly harsh and ineffective 
sentencing laws it passed in the first place.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)

*******************

Death penalty wars with conscience



In his March 27 column, Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote of Louisiana's release of a 
30-year resident of death row. Now that he knows of exculpatory evidence, the 
Louisiana lead prosecutor wrote a nicely-worth-reading Shreveport Occasions 
column, deploring his personal lack of the individual and qualified qualities 
important to seek death. "Had I been additional inquisitive, possibly the proof 
would have come to light years ago. But I wasn't, and my inaction contributed 
to the miscarriage of justice in this matter," Marty Stroud wrote.

Also in March, Mark L. Earley Sr., a former Virginia state senator and lawyer 
basic, and a a single-time conservative candidate for governor, wrote in the 
University of Richmond Law Review an write-up titled: "A pink Cadillac, an IQ 
of 63, and a 14-year-old from South Carolina: why I can no longer assistance 
the death penalty." Earley recounts three death penalty prosecutions that were 
eventually reversed, such as a 70-year-old South Carolina prosecution which led 
to the execution of a wrongly convicted youngster. Earley recognizes the close 
to-150 men and women who have been released from death row nationwide due to 
the fact 1973, some by means of DNA exonerations, and some for findings of a 
lack of proof. In each of these cases of wrongful conviction, a prosecutor 
filed a notice of intent to seek death.

Right after decades as a prosecutor and defense lawyer, watching and listening 
and creating errors, I argue that the death penalty should really have no 
additional than a tiny spot in our justice system, to be initiated only by an 
educated, knowledgeable and wise committee of prosecutors. Extremely couple of 
folks possess the requisite levels of education, knowledge and wisdom to 
reliably participate in a committee choice of who must reside or die. Quite 
handful of of these really few people turn out to be prosecutors. If we ever 
come to recognize an inability to reliably type committees of appropriately 
qualified prosecutors, we must abolish the death penalty. Whether or not we are 
already there ought to be the debate, but the Louisiana lead prosecutor clearly 
describes to his deep sorrow the difficulty of acquiring such prosecutors.

I assert that no one possesses the important qualities to individually decide 
who should reside or die. I accept that when I was a chief prosecutor so 
extended ago that I, also, may well have lacked the qualities needed to jointly 
make such decisions. When given notice of openings in the homicide unit, I 
declined to apply. Perhaps I knew then what I know now, but I admit that 
memories of these old choices likely have been affected by subsequent 
encounter.

When some of our forefathers met to declare independence, they were perceived 
by fellow rebels as these greatest able to draft a declaration. When other 
rebels met to sign the Articles of Confederation as representatives of 
newly-independent states, they were perceived as those very best able to 
assessment the articles. When a group of citizens convened to draft a 
constitution as representatives of confederated states, they have been 
perceived as those greatest capable to draft either a constitution or new 
articles. When community delegates have been elected for ratification 
conventions, they have been perceived as those most effective able to accept or 
reject the federal constitution.

At every step in the creation of independent government, groups of our 
forefathers met for reasoned discussion and compromise, but couple of served 
for more than a single step. The idea that any a single person was sufficiently 
educated, knowledgeable and wise adequate to individually draft, sign, present 
or ratify these documents was foreign to those men it ought to be so to us 
nowadays. Beware the claims of any generation of the quickly sensible person he 
or she is not.

(source: Column; Ray Warren is a defense attorney from Port Orange----Daytona 
Beach News-Journal)