Reply #40: Excellent post. Now you know why I have some moral objections [View All]

[genius]

to Dean. Whether Dean or Bush wins, innocent victims of the justice system are in trouble and any one of us could be one of those innocent victims of the justice system. Only the most uneducated people in our society think that the majority of criminal defendants are guilty. Imagine the kind of justices this guy would appoint: men who would eliminate technicalities, like the right to an attorney (goodbye Powell and Gideon), like current rules against use of confessions obtained with rubber hoses or through trickery (see Miranda v. Arizona for a discussion of police abuses) like misleading evidence created from generalized warrantless fishing expeditions of people's homes (see Mapp v. Ohio) and so forth.

108 people have been exonerated from death row. In other words they were found innocent before they were executed. However, with Dean's justices in charge, they would all have been killed and that would have been okay with Dean. Remember Dean's statement that executions of the innocent are an acceptable risk.

I notice you are backing Edwards. Although I am not backing Edwards, this is one area where I trust him. I think that Edwards, Kucinich and Kerry will appoint the best justices who will give innocent people a fighting chance against an oppressive system.

About the nuclear waste issue, Dean backed Yucca Mountain (a planned nuclear dump site which will likely contaminate the Colorado River water that flows through California water taps). His lack of caring for the millions of Califnria children who could die as a result of his callousness is something I would more likely expect of a Bush clone.

Bush and Dean are too much alike on too many important issues. Dean's appointments may actually be worse than anything we're seeing from Bush. This is one of the reasons why, as a lifelong Democrat, I don't know if I could ever support Dean. The other eight candidates and even Clark would be easy to support by comparision.