Dealing in Death

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Last week President Trump declared opioids a national public health emergency. You may know the depressing statistics. More than 183,000 opioid-related deaths in the last sixteen years, the number of heroin overdoses tripling in just a few years, 78 opioid-related deaths per day in America alone. About 1,000 people are treated by hospital emergency departments every day for using opioids in a manner not prescribed by a doctor.

On any given day about 3,900 Americans initiate the use of non-prescription opioids and 560 use heroin for the first time. Oddly, these statistics are related.

You should also know that about 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed in the United States every day, and that number has increased tremendously during the last 25 years. In fact, American doctors write about 80% of the planet’s opioid prescriptions. We are apparently a country in a great deal of pain.

You know that quite often what happens is that someone will be prescribed an opiate following surgery or another medical procedure, and the prescription includes enough medication to addict the individual (I came home with a couple of bottles of pills following arm surgery but one pill was enough for me; I hated the way it made me feel). Then the doctor cuts the patient off and will not renew the prescription. The addict has two choices: She can either begin doctor shopping to find other doctors to prescribe the opiates or she can turn to a cheaper opiate called heroin. In some areas a heroin fix can be bought for about $10.  So a good many folks use heroin for the first time each day because their opioid prescription ran out.

This is all depressing stuff. A while back I wrote about our son’s heroic and successful struggle with opioid abuse, so at a visceral level I understand how depressing it is. To date he has buried at least nine friends and most died from opiate overdose. The ones I knew were good kids. Really good kids.

Here is the thing: Greed and profit are a large part of this problem. Two examples should suffice.

The first example comes from this week’s The New Yorker magazine.

As explained by New Yorker, OxyContin was developed by Purdue Pharma, a company in Connecticut. OxyContin contained oxycodone, a poppy-derived drug that was already being sold as Percodan and Percocet. But OxyContin took it to the next level because it was pure oxycodone (not mixed with aspirin or acetaminophen) produced in doses of up to 160 milligrams. Just so you know…that is a lot!

When Purdue consulted doctors prior to releasing OxyContin the doctors expressed concern about the potential for higher levels of addiction but Purdue released the drug without any research on its addictive potential. The FDA allowed the release of OxyContin and even stated that the drug was less addictive because of its patented time release formula. And, by the way, the FDA administrator who released that statement left the FDA and, you guessed it, took a job with Purdue Pharma.

OxyContin was prescribed for both severe and moderate pain levels. Within five years the drug was producing a billion dollars a year for Purdue Pharma.

Within a short time some abusers began to realize that OxyContin could either be ground into a powder and snorted or added to liquid and injected, thus overriding the time release agents. This as more and more doctors prescribed the drug in large quantities leading to a black market for those selling the pills they didn’t use. Some doctors began prescribing the drug like it was M&M’s.

Rather than taking responsibility for producing a highly addictive drug and promoting its wide distribution, Purdue began a campaign blaming OxyContin addiction on the addicts.  Purdue’s ads stated that the drug provided twelve-hour pain relief, but that wasn’t always the case so patients took more than prescribed. And when patients began reporting itchy feelings and other symptoms of addiction to their doctors, Purdue coined the phrase “pseudo addiction”, again blaming the patient.

When Purdue Pharma came under attack by the medical community and others because people were crushing and snorting OxyContin and because of its high addiction rates, Purdue reformulated the drug making it more difficult to crush. Good idea, right? Well…except that the patent on OxyContin was about to expire and changing the formula kept generic options of the drug from being distributed. The company profited from the formula change. And the higher price of the reformulated drug drove those who could not afford it to heroin. In fact one academic paper found that the current heroin crisis is a result of the OxyContin reformulation. The correlation between the new formulation and rising heroin deaths is almost indisputable.

The bottom line is that in spite of evidence that OxyContin was extremely addictive, the pharmaceutical company profiting from it kept producing it, aggressively marketing it, and blaming negative consequences on the consumer. Mike Moore, Mississippi’s attorney general, said it best when he stated that tobacco companies and Purdue Pharma were similar because “they’re both profiting from killing people”.

Interestingly, I stumbled upon a second example published on the CNN website   yesterday. A story similar to that of OxyContin but involving Endo Pharmaceuticals and its drug, Opana ER, a very addictive pain killer.

In 2012, according to CNN,  Endo actually pulled Opana ER off the market because it was so addictive and because it was being crushed and snorted and was killing people. Endo also sued the FDA to keep a generic version off the market, ostensibly for the same reason (addictive and killing people). Very altruistic, right? Well…not so much.

As you may anticipate, Endo actually reformulated Opana ER with a hard shell to make it difficult to crush and snort. The new formula also included a few other new active ingredients. Addicts figured out how to bypass the crush/snort conundrum by liquefying and injecting it with a needle.

This summer the FDA found that reformulated Opana ER was no safer and, uncharacteristically, pressured Endo to stop selling it. I wish this had a happy ending, but it doesn’t. The FDA order only impacted the reformulated drug with the hard coating, not the original crushable/snortable version. You can probably guess what Endo did. The company contracted with another company to begin producing the original formula under a generic name. So Endo will be making a profit off a drug that in 2012 it said was too dangerous for patients. And Endo will now be responsible for a generic version of Opana ER, something it sued the FDA to keep off the market.

Endo has earned between $160 million and $380 million in annual profits from Opana ER.

I’m generally in favor of economic competition. Our cars, phones, clothes, and groceries are higher quality and less expensive because we have choices. Back when Ma Bell controlled almost all the phone services and phones, for example, they were still connected to walls with wires and did nothing but, you know, make calls. Because of competition my phone does much more. The same is true of other goods and services and the competition means less government regulation is necessary (though some is still required).

Competition doesn’t work with pharmaceuticals. Greed and profit cannot determine what drugs are released onto the market. Remember Martin Shkreli increasing the cost of Danaprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill? Remember the six-fold increase in the cost of the lifesaving Epi-Pen in a ten year period? Then think about the stories I just shared.

Saving lives and managing pain should not be based entirely on profits because the temptation to sacrifice lives for money is apparently just too great for some folks and companies.

 

 

 

Living Like There is No Tomorrow II

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Several months ago I lost what I thought was a long time friend when I posted a comment on our seeming willingness to destroy the only planet on which we may currently live. I’m still baffled that this issue is controversial, especially so controversial that it ends friendships. How can anyone not be concerned about clean air, clean water, and leaving a stable environment for our children?

I just can’t seem to let this topic go. Guess I’ll jeopardize more friendships.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a non-partisan arm of the United States Congress that audits and evaluates government programs. GAO audits how the government spends money, among other functions. A few days ago a report from the GAO further validated my earlier post expressing concerns regarding the environment. This report recommends taking climate change seriously and finding ways to address it because failure to do so will result in consistently increasing costs passed on to the taxpayers. Extreme weather likely resulting from a changing climate, says the report, has already cost billions of dollars during the last decade and will cost much more in the future.

And GAO isn’t the only agency reaching this conclusion. Most American scientific research on the topic has been conducted by NASA, and that agency reports that global temperatures have increased by 2 degrees since the late 19th century, that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at their highest level in 650,000 years, and that arctic ice is shrinking by 13.2% per decade. NASA also calculates that there is a greater than 95% probability human activity is causing this drastic change.

And even the U.S. Military is concerned about  and preparing for national security related issues related to climate change. A 2014 report by The Military Advisory Board which is composed of 16 retired flag-level officers from the various branches of the military wrote that “The potential security ramifications of global climate change should be serving as catalysts for cooperation and change. Instead, climate change impacts are already accelerating instability in vulnerable areas of the world and are serving as catalysts for conflict.” 

Did you know that large portions of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are already dead because of rising ocean water temperatures? This is occurring about 30 years earlier than scientists had predicted.

Did you know that about 40% of animal and plant species that are tied to a specific geographic range have shifted more during the last 30 years than at any time in the last 10,000 years? They are being forced to move because they are dependent on certain temperatures, rainfall, and other environmental factors, and the acceptable range is shifting.

Did you know that plants rely on “seasonal cues” in the spring and fall that determine when they begin to grow or go dormant, and that during the last 30-40 years many plant species have begun taking their seasonal cues from 15 to 20 days early?

Did you know that warming temperatures could extend the range for mosquitoes thus making the spread of mosquito-borne disease more likely? It is possible that last year’s spread of the zika virus to 23 countries was an early example of what our future holds.

The Intergovernmental Panel on  Climate Change is composed of hundreds of scientists across the planet and the Panel releases a report on climate change every few years assessing literature on climate change. The last report was released in 2014 (the next will be released in 2021 or so) and analyzed more than 30,000 scholarly papers on climate change. The report, written by 800 authors, concluded that “human influence on climate change is clear”, and that we “have the means to limit climate change and build a more prosperous, sustainable future”.

These facts are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community. They are primarily rejected only by corporations and others benefitting from the status quo. Sure, it is possible to find “reports” debunking these conclusion, but close attention to the sources of those rebuttals is important. How many of those reports concluding that climate change isn’t real are published in academic journals and withstood a rigorous approval process prior to publication?

And even if the scientists are wrong, why is promoting a clean environment a bad idea?

And even if the scientists are wrong shouldn’t we err on the side of caution if our children’s future may be in the balance?

Those opposing governmental action often argue that switching to renewable energy would have a detrimental impact on our economy. The truth is that more jobs are created by converting to renewable energy than by continuing to use fossil fuel. It is estimated that three times more energy-related jobs would be created by 2025 if we moved toward renewable energy. Moving away from coal and natural gas would also reduce “breathing problems, neurological damage, heart attacks, and cancer” associated with fossil fuels.

Oh, and that GAO report I mentioned earlier? It strongly recommended specifically that the Trump administration immediately begin formulating a serious response to this threat. A logical response is supporting renewable energy and moving away from fossil fuels.

But if you want to know what the Trump administration has actually done regarding the environment you can read this article released yesterday by National Geographic. I doubt you will be surprised.

No other issue facing the human race is as significant as is this.

 

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The Constitution’s 2nd Amendment

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I often become amused and/or frustrated when I read people’s comments about “Constitutional rights” when they likely have never read the Constitution and almost certainly don’t know it’s history. People say stuff like “my right to (fill in the blank) is protected by the Constitution” when, in fact, that right is often never mentioned or implied. A few years ago Newsweek polled 1,000 Americans and found that only 30% knew that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. In a previous post I mentioned the dismally low number of Americans who could name a single First Amendment right, who knew that the Constitution provides three branches of government, or who could name one branch of government.

But Americans still feel comfortable relying on their “Constitutional rights” when doing so supports their cause. Suddenly everyone becomes a Constitutional scholar!

“Constitutional law” is an area of study that covers what is actually written in the United States Constitution and how that document’s passages have been interpreted, primarily by the Supreme Court, since the 1790’s. Anyone familiar with this body of law knows that 1) much of the Constitution is vague and inapplicable to contemporary society because it was written in a different era (it requires states to pay debts using gold or silver coin, for example), and 2) the Court has interpreted the document’s passages thousands of times in the last 220 years BECAUSE those passages are vague and inapplicable to contemporary circumstances.

Here are a few examples of Constitutional passages and how they have changed:

1st Amendment

The first amendment in the Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Are these rights absolute? Do I have unrestricted freedom of speech and religion, for example? Obviously not.

  • I have freedom of speech but that doesn’t mean I have the right to slander another person’s reputation.  And as stated by Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, freedom of speech does not give me the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater.
  • I have freedom of religion but I cannot use that freedom to justify smoking marijuana or ingesting peyote in my religious ceremony or to justify human sacrifice.
  • I have freedom to assemble but that doesn’t give me the right to block busy streets or sidewalks or to damage property with my assembly.

4th Amendment

This Constitutional provision protects us from “unreasonable search and seizure”, meaning the government must have a warrant to search our property. This was written at a time when almost all property was fixed in a certain location, so our houses were easy to identify for search. But:

  • The authors of that provision could not have imagined automobiles, trains, airplanes, or other such “movable property” that can be hundreds or thousands of miles away before a warrant can be secured and served.
  • The authors could not have imagined searching through someone’s urine for illegal drugs as a form of search.
  • They could not have imagined using drug sniffing dogs to find illegal substances being transported in cars or luggage.
  • And using airplanes or helicopters to search for marijuana fields was beyond the authors’ comprehension.

8th Amendment

This passage protects Americans from “cruel and unusual punishment” at the hands of the government. The authors could not have imagined waterboarding, over crowded prisons, refusing meals to inmates, or contemporary forms of torture. The authors probably had things like the rack and thumb screw in mind (of course those were pretty nasty as well). The Court has expanded the 8th Amendment to prohibit any severe punishment that is inflicted arbitrarily, so it has been used to prohibit some forms of execution, overcrowded prison cells, denying prison inmates adequate food, etc.

I could continue because almost every major Constitutional passage has been interpreted over time to make those passages conform to contemporary circumstances.

Which brings us to the 2nd Amendment: 

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”

Before I begin I should let you know that I am a gun owner and that I enjoy shooting; mostly shooting “at” skeets and targets because I tend to miss more often than not.

There is little doubt that when the 2nd Amendment was passed the authors intended for every citizen to have the right to possess firearms because all citizens could have technically been a part of the militia. Since there was no real standing Army that was the way we defended ourselves against invasion.

There is also little doubt that many of that period’s leaders wanted an armed citizenry as protection against an overzealous or oppressive government. Richard Henry Lee said “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”  Being taught how to use firearms was also something the Founders expected.

But…here is another Constitutional passage that is often overlooked by those arguing against gun control.

“The Congress shall have Power … To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” 

Why is this important? Because the Founders stated that standing armies could only be authorized for two years but a Navy could be “maintained”. They knew that a Navy was our first line of defense against invaders but a standing Army could be used to oppress the people. So their intent was for a militia to serve the purpose served by an Army (except in extraordinary circumstances when an Army would be formed). And the militia’s responsibility was executing laws, putting down insurrections, and repelling invasions that got past the Navy. They wanted to be certain no Army could oppress or suppress the public. They also wanted to be sure that all able males owned a gun for the purpose of putting down insurrections (there had been a few by that time) and repelling invaders.

The 2nd Amendment was not intended to give citizens the right to own weapons for personal self defense.

Also, as the well known argument goes, the weapons the Founders had in mind were mostly flint locks, blunderbusses, and single shot carbines. They were not the rapid fire, high caliber weapons capable of killing 58 people and wounding more than 500 in eleven minutes. I’m fairly confident the Founders NEVER considered this possibility.

So here is the question:

If we know freedom of speech, search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and every other Constitutional provision of the Constitution (many such as the Commerce Clause, the Guarantee Cause, the Presentment Clause, and countless others too complicated to discuss in a 1200-word blog post) have evolved over time to meet contemporary circumstances, why is there resistance among some Americans to doing the same with the 2nd Amendment? There is absolutely no doubt the Founders’ view of “arms” was quite different from those available today.

 

 

Our Misdirected Attention

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While offering a speech in Alabama eight days ago President Trump called NFL players who knelt during the National Anthem “sons of bitches” and said they should be fired.  I have  expressed my feelings about President Trump’s uncivilized behavior in two previous posts, so I’ll just let it go. Since I asked readers to defend his actions and nobody was willing to do so I must assume his behavior is indefensible.

I’ve read all the posts, memes, and comments on both sides of this issue that I can stomach at this point. Like it or not, the bottom line is that the football players are legally and peacefully protesting racial injustice, and that injustice is real. Numerous studies confirm that fact, but this piece from the Constitutional Rights Foundation offers a brief summary.

And yes, I know the players are protesting while “on the clock” because I’ve read that argument dozens of times this week, but that is between the players and the teams’ owners. If the owners want to take action that is their prerogative, but it is a labor issue (and it seems that most owners are supporting the protests). And if you don’t like the players interrupting your football game with a form of protest that you find offensive you can choose to watch Andy Griffith reruns instead. That is what freedom is all about.

But prior to President Trump’s Alabama proclamation the protests were a very minor part of Sunday afternoon football because only a handful of players participated. Thanks to his comments the protests are now widespread and growing. I’m pretty certain that was intentional because it diverted a large portion of the public’s attention from the breaking news that the President’s son-in-law and other White House officials were using private email to discuss public business, the removal of Sudan and addition of Chad and Venezuela to the restricted immigration list (for reasons the President was unable to articulate), the fact that the investigation into Russia’s attempts to influence last year’s election is intensifying, the continued war of words between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, the pending failure of yet another attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and other bad news coming out of the White House and Washington.

And it worked!! News outlets and Facebook conversations have been focused on football players rather than things that really matter.

Here are some things you might have missed while our attention was diverted:

  • Since the Alabama proclamation a three year old in Philadelphia accidentally shot his uncle,  a toddler at a Detroit daycare found a handgun and accidentally shot two children, a little two year old boy in St. Louis accidentally killed his father with a gun, and a three year old boy in Ohio accidentally killed himself while playing with a gun. Sad statistic: American children accidentally shoot others or themselves about once each week on average.
  • Approximately 175,000 children have starved to death in the last eight days even though there is enough food on the planet for everyone.
  • After reaching historic lows in 2014 the American murder rate reached 25-year high rates in 2015 and has increased the last three years. Most, but not all, of that increase is a result of murders in a few large cities, especially Chicago.  An average of 44 people are murdered each day, so that’s about 350 Americans dead by violence since the Alabama proclamation.
  • On average about 160,000 American kids stay home from school each day because of fear of being bullied. That means there have been about a million absences since the Alabama proclamation.
  • Every 25 minutes an American baby is born with severe withdrawal symptoms, usually from heroin, cocaine, meth, or pain killers. That means that more than 375 addicted babies have been born since the Alabama proclamation.
  • Since the planet is suffering about 80,000 acres of man-made deforestation each day,  we’ve lost almost 900,000 acres of forest since President Trump’s Alabama proclamation. Since we also destroy about 135 plant, animal, and insect species each day …. well, you can do the math.  And, by the way, coral reefs are dying faster than are rain forests because of the CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

I could continue, but if you are still reading you are certainly depressed by now.

So for goodness sake lets focus on athletes taking a knee or locking arms rather than discussing life and death issues that impact real people. And, by the way, it is precisely life and death issues that are at the center of the athletes’ peaceful protests.

Our attention to things that really matter is being diverted by politicians and the media. When President Trump gets us to focus on symbolic issue such as the flag that means we are ignoring issues of substance. My classes have heard me make this argument for almost four decades. We are led to focus on red meat issues such as gun control, abortion, and crime so we forget about other things that matter. President Trump has taken such misdirection to a whole new level.

Here We Go Again

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Several weeks ago I wrote  twice about the American Healthcare mess. I tried to offer a thorough summary of the healthcare system and solutions that should be explored. Remember that I also did not express support for Obamacare. I’ve always thought it was good for some and bad for others, that it did not actually address the healthcare crisis, and that if that crisis is not addressed healthcare will increasingly weigh down the economy. Obamacare requires major reform or should be totally replaced. I also argued that “Trumpcare” and other Republican attempts to repeal Obamacare did not effectively address the crisis.

Now Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy have introduced yet another attempt to repeal Obamacare. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill next week even though only about 17% of Americans favored the Trumpcare proposal introduced several months ago. Unless I’m wrong (always a distinct possibility) Americans will not be so crazy about the Graham/Cassidy bill as well, but Republicans are trying to push it through.

President Trump has voiced overwhelming support for the Graham-Cassidy bill. I’m confident he has not read it nor does he have a clear idea about the bill’s provisions.

I also watched Senator Jeff Flake argue in favor of the bill yesterday morning, but when questioned he admitted he had not read it. And when he was asked how many pages are in the bill, he could not answer. So once again members of Congress are arguing in favor of something they know nothing about.

Keep in mind that on May 4 when the Senate was debating Trumpcare Senator Graham tweeted: “A bill — finalized yesterday, has not been scored, amendments not allowed, and 3 hours final debate — should be viewed with caution.”  So he was complaining that:

  1. The bill under consideration that would repeal Obamacare had not been “scored”. Bills are scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, and that score tries to forecast the impact of legislation on the budget and on those affected by the legislation. Graham thought the Senate should wait for the CBO score.
  2. No amendments to the bill were being permitted. This is the standard legislative process under “regular order”, and Graham thought it should be followed. This also means that committees are involved so amendments, as well as the bill itself, may be deliberated.
  3. Only three hours of debate were scheduled even though the repeal of Obamacare would impact 1/5 of our nation’s economy.

Guess what? The Graham/Cassidy bill is being introduced and debated in precisely the same manner.

  • No time for a full CBO score.
  • Because of the way it was introduced debate may be limited to 90 seconds (yes…seconds).
  • Compromise through traditional means will be impossible because the deadline is September 30 (I won’t explain the arcane rules,).

Oh…and back in June Senator Graham said “well I worry about Conrhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases and if they start doing that crap they are going to lose me. I’ll vote to proceed but if you start taking some of the money and savings and buying off votes that’s exactly what got us Obamacare and I would rebel against that.” Graham was referring to incidents in the past when concessions were made to certain members of Congress to get them to vote a certain way on a bill. In other words, a bill would give benefits to some states not available to others to garner votes of those states’ legislators.

Guess what? The Graham/Cassidy bill makes a special exception for Alaska so that Medicaid beneficiaries in that state would receive more than those from other states. Did you know that Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was one of the three Republicans opposing the Republican healthcare proposal this summer? Did you know that if she doesn’t vote for Graham/Cassidy it will likely not pass?

Although I’ve disagreed with Senator Graham on many or most policy issues over time I always thought he was consistent.  Now I realize that he is as hypocritical as those whom he has previously denounced for doing precisely what he is now doing.

I could go in to the details of the Graham/Cassidy bill, but if you are interested NPR offers a pretty good summary. What it does essentially is take federal money from states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare (mostly Democratic states) and shifts that money to the states that did not expand Medicaid. The largest states, California and New York, would lose while Texas gained. If the bill becomes law individuals will no longer be required to have health insurance, more money would be allocated to states based on “block grants” that leave much of the decision-making regarding healthcare to those states,  large employers would not be required to provide insurance to employees, and Medicaid expansion funding would be cut. It also appears that the requirement that insurance companies cover people with preexisting conditions would be severely weakened.

Since we have no CBO score it is difficult to know the consequences of passage, but analysis by The Commonwealth Fund concludes that 32 million people would eventually lose their healthcare coverage. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities believes more than 32 million would lose coverage after about ten years.

Thus far  The American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, The American Public Health Association, The National Institute for Public Health, and Federation of American Hospitals have voiced opposition to the bill. Interestingly, Blue Cross Blue Shield also opposes it as do The American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association. So if you are paying attention you see that doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and patient advocacy groups are voicing opposition.

So that begs the question, why are they pushing it? I’ll give you three guesses. Any takers?

HOW WE GOT HERE

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“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both” (James Madison)

No, this is not another post about sex (the title may be misleading). This is about the current state of affairs in America and an attempt to at least partially understand it.

In honor of Constitution Day* the Annenberg Policy Center released a poll last week on Americans’ understanding of the Constitution. The poll is predictably depressing. As it turns out, 37% of Americans could not name a single 1st Amendment right (speech, religion, press, assembly, petition), only 26% could name the three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial), and 33% could not name any of the three branches of government. Interestingly, self-described conservatives could identify the three branches better than liberals and moderates.

The survey also found that more than half of the respondents did not believe illegal immigrants have rights under the Constitution. As far back as 1886 the Supreme Court ruled that non-citizens are protected by the Constitution (the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause), and the Court has affirmed that decision in other cases since 1886. In 1982 the Court even guaranteed the right to public education to children of illegal aliens.

One encouraging response to the poll was that more than 3/4 of Americans understood that atheists and Muslims have the same Constitutional rights as Christians but, conversely, it is disheartening that about 1/4 of respondents did not know that. Or maybe they do not want to accept it.

Want more?

  • Three years after Obamacare was implemented 44% of Americans still did not know it had been passed in to law.
  • Americans consistently overestimate the amount spent on foreign aid; although it is only about 1% of the federal budget Americans believe about 1/3 of the budget goes to foreign aid. Further, Americans have no idea how much of the federal budget goes to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security (about 45%).
  • Americans are confused about which governmental responsibilities are performed by which officials, some believe a 5/4 Supreme Court decision is sent to Congress, and a large number don’t know the role of the Senate in approving the president’s nominations.
  • About half of Americans don’t know that every state gets two senators.

More?

Last year Just Facts Daily commissioned a poll on Americans’ knowledge about major issues facing our country. The poll included 23 questions on education, healthcare, global warming, social security, and more. The majority of voters gave the correct answer to only 6 of the 23 questions. I’ll admit that some of the questions were difficult and required the respondent to be somewhat informed and capable of thinking critically, but the results are still a concern because it means voters last year chose candidates (for all political offices) based on false assumptions.

And before you jump to conclusions you should know that Republicans outscored Democrats on 19 of the 23 questions. In other words, Republicans answered Constitutional questions correctly more frequently than did Democrats.  Democrats only scored higher on questions related to Social Security, climate change, and EPA impact on air quality. But again this is only a semantic difference since  average respondents for voters from both parties only answered 6 of 23 correctly.

In an older poll (2010) only about 1/4 of the population could identify John Roberts as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and only about 1/3 knew that President Bush enacted bailouts of banks: most thought bailouts were introduced by Obama. According to a poll from last year only 16% could name both their state’s senators and about 35% could name one of the two.

I could continue, but I’m sure you get the idea. Americans are pretty uninformed about the government, the major issues facing society, and the Constitution. I doubt you are surprised.

The truth is that this is probably not something new. Polls since the 1930’s have consistently demonstrated that Americans have been, for at least 80 years, relatively uninformed compared to citizens of other nations. As explained by Ilya Somin*,  the problem is more significant now because of scale. That mean that in the “old days” people might have not  known a great deal about the government, constitution, or public policy, but the government was less involved in citizens’ lives back then so it was less important. Today there is honestly no aspect of our lives over which government has no control at all. I’ll entertain any disagreements in the comments section. Name something the government doesn’t control!

Of course Somin is a conservative (a very intelligent one) , so he argues for decentralization of government; give power back to local governments as much as possible, then give power to state governments, and leave larger issues (he mentions climate change specifically) to the national government. This idea is appealing, but after observing numerous corrupt, ineffective, and petty local governments for several decades I disagree that giving them more power is necessarily a good solution.

But I digress.

It seems strange that most Americans now have access to almost all human history and knowledge in their pockets or purses, and we are no better informed than we were when our phones were connected to the wall (yes, kids, I know that’s a strange idea).

The truth is that our lives are busy. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to pay close attention to those who are elected to represent us. As Somin argues, historically that was less important, but now it really matters. Because we are so uninformed we fall easy prey to trite campaign slogans and promises (the wall, free education for all, Make America Great Again, Stronger Together, etc.). We also fall easy prey to Facebook news (which, as it turns out, is easily manipulated by the Russians and others) and other less reliable “news” outlets.  As a consequence a large portion of voters make voting booth decisions based on those trite promises and inaccurate news rather than determining whether the promises and news are meaningful or true. In that sense we probably get the government we deserve, and apparently we deserve pretty crappy government because that is what we have.

And before reaching the conclusion that Americans are just becoming dumber, you should know that Americans’ IQ scores have actually increased by about three points every decade during the last 100 years. So we are more intelligent but less informed. Maybe we should use our phones and computers for more than just watching puppy videos (although I do love puppy videos).

I honestly have no solution. I cannot wave a magic wand and expect voters to suddenly care. What I do know is that it appears the democratic experiment is failing. Quickly. And it is largely because Americans as a whole are uninformed but still feel some responsibility to vote.

 

 

*Constitution Day celebrates the signing of that document by our Founders on September 17, 1787. I generally only remember about eight dates (one reason I’m not a historian): July 4, September 17, and six birthdays, one of which is my own. September 17 is a big deal.

*Ilya Somin is a Law Professor at George Mason University and fellow at the conservative Cato Institute,

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX

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Back in July the Trump administration cut more than $200 million from about 80 programs nationwide that are working to prevent teen pregnancy. This decision was lost in the other political turmoil surrounding the White House this summer, but the consequences of the cuts are significant.

Here are important facts according to the Guttmacher Institute:

  • Almost half of American teenagers are sexually active (that means almost half admit to being sexually active).
  • The average age for American teenagers’ first sexual experience is 17.
  • About 15% of American teenagers report having sex for the first time prior to turning 15 years of age.
  • American and European teenagers are equally active sexually, but European teens are more likely to use birth control and have lower teen pregnancy rates.
  • According to a Centers for Disease Control survey about 10% of teenagers had sex with multiple partners during the twelve months prior to the survey.
  • About half of all American sexually transmitted infections (STI) occur in those aged 24 and younger. That age group incurred about 9.7 million infections in 2008 and also accounts for a little more than 20% of HIV infections.
  • Adolescents account for about 15% of all unintended pregnancies.
  • In 2013 American adolescents had approximately 110,000 abortions.
  • Abortion is pregnant teenagers’ choice only 24% of the time. They choose to take the baby to term 61% of the time, meaning more times than not these teenagers become single mothers.

But:

  • The number of teenage girls using contraception rose from 48% in 1982 to 79% in 2011.
  • In 1980, 118 per 1,000 teenaged girls became pregnant each year but in 2013 that number reached the record low of 43 pregnancies per 1,000. However, the pregnancy rates vary significantly by state. New Mexico, for example, has a teen pregnancy rate of 62 per 1,000 whereas New Hampshire’s rate is only 22 per 1,000.
  • Between 1985 and 2007 the number of teenagers having abortions dropped by at least a third.

That’s a lot of information.

Bottom line? A large number of teenagers are sexually active. A fair number get pregnant. Some have abortions. But teen pregnancy and abortion rates have declined in recent decades? Why? And why are teen pregnancy rates declining more slowly in some states than others? Several factors likely explain the differences in teen pregnancy rates, but concluding that it is because kids in some areas have more sex would be inaccurate. The evidence is that kids have sex at the same rates pretty much everywhere.

Let’s compare two states with opposite rates. Texas has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country and Colorado one of the lowest, and Colorado’s rates continue to decline steadily.

In Texas a 17 year old who wants contraceptives must have parental permission, and that doesn’t change even if a teenager has a child at an earlier age. Even after having a child a 17 year old would need parental permission to obtain birth control. Further, 58% of sex education in Texas is “abstinence only”  and another 25% of school districts offer no sex education at all.  Yes, that means about 83% of Texas schools teach abstinence only or no sex education at all. The remaining 17%? They teach “abstinence plus”. Oh, and research indicates that a good bit of the information provided in abstinence only programs is either false or misleading (that, for example, condoms are ineffective).  They also rely on fear and shame, and neither of these works. Obviously.

In recent years Colorado has moved quickly to change sex education curricula in public schools, making it more age-appropriate and comprehensive. Also, in Colorado the state actually subsidizes long acting, reversible birth control for those in lower income brackets and, you guessed it, teen pregnancy and abortion rates have plummeted. In fact the teen pregnancy rate was cut in half during the first five years of the Colorado Family Planning Initiative. That means that a large number of teenage women who might have become pregnant will now be able to attend college or pursue careers, build families, and be more productive members of society than would likely have been the case had they become single mothers.

There has been a modest decline in the number of teenagers having sex (again, this is self-reported so the statistics may be inaccurate), but the decline in the number of kids saying they have sex doesn’t come close to explaining the steep decline in the teen birth rate since the early 1990’s. Numerous factors contribute, but most significantly about 80% of kids report using birth control the first time they had sex. Kids are also using more effective forms of birth control than in the past. Interestingly, a 2016 Brookings Institute report also concluded that such TV shows as “16 and Pregnant” (on MTV) led to a decline in teen births because these shows accurately portray the consequences of unprotected sex.

In America we have this idea that if we tell kids not to have sex, they won’t. If we just ignore the topic of sex and don’t discuss it with our kids they won’t become interested. If we don’t tell them about the birds and the bees they will only be interested in chocolate. This is just a dumb attitude. Yes, in an ideal world kids would wait until they were old enough to understand the consequences of sex, but a good many just don’t, never have and never will. The urge to have sex is powerful (thank goodness or I would not be here to write this and you would not be reading it).

We should stop pretending that telling kids to abstain from sex works. Evidence overwhelmingly condemns abstinence only education as ineffective and supports comprehensive sex education. So instead of reducing funding to programs seeking lower teen pregnancy rates, we should increase spending for those programs. The cost is minor compared to the social and emotional costs of young girls having unplanned and unwanted babies or, even more troubling, choosing to abort those pregnancies.

Defend President Trump

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Donald Trump became president largely because he won votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  He won all the electoral votes in these states and was able to win the electoral college while losing the popular vote by about 3 million votes.

Now a majority in those three states that helped propel Donald Trump into the White House no longer approve of his job performance, with approval ratings in those states in the mid 30’s and disapproval ratings at about 55%. More than 60% in Michigan and Wisconsin say they are embarrassed by President Trump. Even about 1/4 of those states’ Tea Party members are questioning his presidency only seven months in although most of the voters who supported President Trump in last year’s election still do so.

Nationally President Trump’s disapproval ratings hover around 60% and his approval rating at about 35%. In previous posts I’ve stated that Congress has an approval rating of about 15% and I wonder what that 15% sees that I don’t. I ask the same about President Trump: What does that 35% see that I don’t?

Three months into Donald Trump’s presidency I discussed the 2016 presidential election and the poor choices voters were stuck with in November. I stated that I understood how voters chose to oppose Hillary Clinton, but I also questioned how voters could actually support President Trump and approve of his behavior and actions prior to running for office, during the campaign, and after three months as president. Four months later I still wonder.

I’m honestly confused by the 30% of Americans who have validated candidate Trump’s 2016 boast:  “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters…”

And mostly I wonder what it says about the 30% of Americans who think it is OK for a president to constantly attack and blame others, including someone who is clearly an American hero and fighting what is possibly terminal cancer.  I’m also confused about:

  • How evangelical Christians helped elect and can continue to support someone who admitted to molesting women, who bragged about cheating on all his spouses (7th and 10th Commandments), who lacks compassion and humility required by Colossians,  who stole from contractors as well as those who signed up for Trump University (8th Commandment),  and who has told countless lies about other people and constantly plays loose with facts (9th Commandment). In fact, his fabrications and outright lies are almost constant.
  • How President Trump’s followers can ignore his promise to have Mexico pay for that (silly) wall but now says he will shut down our own government if the wall is not funded by American taxpayers.
  • How they can ignore his refusal to release his tax records after promising to do so. Isn’t it pretty obvious there is something in those records he doesn’t want us to see?
  • How they can ignore his firing someone who was conducting an investigation against him and his presidential campaign. And he has threatened to fire the special counsel now conducting that investigation. Again, isn’t it obvious that he has something to hide?
  • How can they ignore candidate Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp”, meaning get rid of all the insiders in the administration, when he actually filled his transition team and administration with lobbyists, corporate insiders, and those who contributed lots of money to his campaign. He appointed former lobbyists to administrative positions giving them responsibility for overseeing the corporations for whom they had previously worked. That isn’t draining the swamp. His cabinet is one of the wealthiest and least representative in history.
  • Why are his supporters not offended by his support for a bill reversing the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy policy making it possible for internet providers to sell customers’ browsing information and other data without their permission? This was a win for corporations, not for his voters.
  • Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Rules were intended to keep companies with a history of labor violations from receiving federal contracts and also required employers to provide their workers with detailed pay stubs to help avoid wage theft by employers. President Trump signed a law reversing those rules. Oh, the overturned law also made it more difficult for companies to hide allegations of discrimination or harassment. Why are his supporters not bothered by this?
  • How can his supporters ignore the fact that he attacked President Obama for playing golf and traveling too much when President Trump spent as much on travel in ten weeks as President Obama did in two years. And he actually makes money indirectly by holding meetings with foreign leaders at his properties.
  • President Trump supported an Obamacare replacement plan that was only supported by 17% of Americans and was opposed by 56%. Does it not matter that at least some of the 23 million who would lose healthcare coverage were the voters who put him in office?
  • Just yesterday President Trump once again made the claim that Americans are taxed at a higher rate than in any other country in the world. This is simply false, but he keeps repeating the claim because it plays well to the uninformed. If anyone disputes such claims he calls it “fake news”. Is his constant manipulation of voters not offensive?
  • How can his supporters accept his constant flip-flopping on policy issues (NATO, China as currency manipulator, his claim to not know Vladimir Putin, Syria, etc.) and not be concerned about the effectiveness of his policies?
  • Why are they not bothered by the fact that he has been unable to accomplish a single major campaign promise, and a good bit of the fault is his. His tweets and off-the- cuff comments (which almost always mangle the English language) have created an environment unconducive to compromise and accomplishment.

OK. I could continue offering arguments and facts, but by now it is obvious I’m not a fan of President Trump. In fact I’ve not been a fan of most presidents who have served during my lifetime, but my disdain for President Trump is almost visceral.  I’m with the majority of Americans.

I know I have friends who are supporters of President Trump. Here is your opportunity to defend him. I honestly want to read your arguments (as long as they are civil).  Please….defend President Trump.

 

 

Politics is a Game; You and I are Minor Players

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Paul Krugman: “Politics determine who has the power, not who has the truth.”

Will Rogers: “A fool and his money are soon elected”

Politics is a game. That has probably been the case throughout history, but it is more true now than ever before. It seems that at every level of government, even in “democratic” societies, attaining power is all that matters.  The benefit of the citizens is secondary or tertiary, and we the voters seem to condone this attitude even though government often benefits a small group in society to the detriment of the larger group.

We expect this in autocratic societies such as North Korea or Russia, but we want to believe that in free societies with open elections those whom we choose will actually, you know, represent us.

Evidence is to the contrary. Government is a seemingly endless series of deals that in the end favor those holding power. Most of my professional life I rejected this notion, trying to believe that the democratic experiment was working. It isn’t. In a previous post I discussed how legislation rarely favors regular citizens, and that includes the recent healthcare proposals that  worked their way  through Congress.  The truth is that citizens have very little power and society is controlled by a fairly small group of people.

Back in 1956 sociologist C. Wright Mills concluded that there is a “power elite” controlling all major American institutions such as banking, major industry, and political offices. Mills didn’t believe there was a grand conspiracy to attain and control power by the elites, but rather that their wealth and power simply gave them control. He argued that the group was relatively small and that earning our way into that group is determined by the schools we attend, the areas in which we live, the churches we attend, and social clubs to which we belong.

Pretty depressing stuff for those of us not belonging to the power elite.

And Mills is not alone in reaching these conclusions. In 1913 political scientist Charles Beard concluded that even the U.S. Constitution was constructed by elites belonging to the same groups. He argued that the Founders wrote the Constitution out of a desire to protect their own financial interests. If you are familiar with the Constitution’s provisions it is fairly easy to agree with him. In later works Beard concluded that almost all governmental decisions are intended to financially favor the elites.

Countless other observers have reached the same conclusion but, like I said, I tried to disagree.

I was naïve.

So, the argument is that the elite class is relatively small, it is at least partially determined by the schools one attends (and other factors), and wealth and political influence define the group.

Here are some things to consider:

  • As always, there are nine member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Guess where they attended law school? Four went to Harvard, three to Yale, two to Columbia. Other law schools equally prepare future judges but only judges from these schools (plus Stanford, Northwestern, etc.) are ever appointed.
  • The median net worth of members of Congress is more than $1,000,000, and that is 18 times the average net worth of Americans. Since 2007 Americans’ net worth fell 43% while that of members of Congress increased by 28%. Representative Darrel Issa from California is worth about $450 million.
  • Every president since Ronald Reagan attended Harvard or Yale (Reagan attended Eureka College in California). And no, attending an Ivy League school does not necessarily mean entrance was earned or deserved or that one graduated as an enlightened citizen. These are obviously great schools but there are lots of great American schools.
  • In the 2016 election cycle one organization (Fahr LLC) donated more than $90 million to Democratic candidates and causes, Renaissance Technologies donated almost $56 million (half to Democrats and half to Republicans), Las Vegas Sands donated more than $44 million to Republicans, and fifty companies donated at least $8 million to candidates. Can Americans in the lower income brackets compete with that type of influence?
  • The “Trumpcare” healthcare bill passed the House of Representatives this year in spite of the fact that only 17% of Americans favored and 56% opposed it. According to the non partisan Congressional Budget Office the bill would have cost 23 million Americans their healthcare coverage. The bill would have allowed insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions and it would allow states to permit insurers to deny coverage for specific conditions such as cancer. The bill also cut $880 billion from Medicaid over ten years thus significantly reducing coverage for the poor and elderly. The bill favored the elites and was opposed by almost everyone else.
  • I have mixed feelings about labor unions, but they have historically been a major player in the fight for common workers. Many of them fought against segregation, fought for Social Security, helped get minimum wage and maximum work day policies implemented, and promoted the creation of OSHA, a government agency working to ensure safe working conditions. I do know all of the labor movement’s warts and failings, but they have absolutely improved conditions for workers. Today more than half the states have implemented “right to work” laws that purposefully weaken unions and favor company owners (elites).
  • And then there is the “revolving door”. If I had a magic wand this is one of the three or four things I would change. Essentially what happens is that certain well-placed individuals alternately hold positions in government and powerful corporations that benefit from government’s policies. For example, Dina Powell is President Trump’s Deputy National Security Adviser.  Prior to that appointment Ms. Powell worked for Goldman-Sachs, a multi-national corporation, for fifteen years. And, by the way, she is only one of five Goldman-Sachs appointees in the current administration. Congressional staffers also take advantage of the revolving door. So, for example, to date about 190 individuals have served for a time on the Senate Finance Committee Staff then taken a job lobbying for companies benefitting from that committee’s work. These folks are part of Mills’ “Power Elite”.

Political Scientist Thomas Dye and his students have been studying American leadership for more than 45 years. They are well-informed and their research is very thorough. They conclude that a small number of “top positions” in America “run programs and activities of major political, economic, legal, educational, cultural, scientific, and civic institutions.” They found that about half of industry, transportation, and banking positions are held by this small group. The group controls about 2/3 of insurance assets. They also found that “less than 250 people hold the most influential posts in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government, while approximately 200 men and women run the three major television networks and most of the national newspaper chains”.

OK. Sorry. That’s a lot of information. The bottom line? A relatively small group of citizens controls a lion’s share of the power. These folks make all the major political, economic, and social decisions.

Even former Trump adviser Steve Bannon (who attended Harvard and worked for Goldman-Sachs) concluded that “elites have taken all the upside for themselves and pushed the downside to the working- and middle-class Americans”.

Is this cynical view of society accurate? I’ll let you reach your own conclusions.  All I know is that, if accurate, it is dangerous. It assumes that some people are more intelligent and are uniquely qualified to make major decisions and that those outside the elite are incapable of contributing very much. That is both dangerous and just plain dumb. The most unique and original ideas I’ve heard in my 63 years came from folks who were certainly not part of the “elite” class, and a cursory glance at the ideas currently generated by those in power makes it clear that those who happen to be in the elite class are often clueless.

 

Capital Punishment

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In 2001 Marcellus Williams was convicted of first degree murder. The 42 year old female victim had been stabbed 43 times in her St. Louis home. No DNA evidence was available at that time and Williams was convicted based primarily on the testimony of two convicted felons. Now DNA from the murder weapon and  hair samples found at the scene are available, and it appears that DNA does not match Williams but is a match for someone else. The State of Missouri still planned to execute Williams last night.

Yesterday, Republican Governor Eric Greitens issued a stay of execution until the case can be examined by an independent body. In issuing the stay Greitens said: “To carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the judgment of guilt”.  Well…yeah. But there is often a problem with that whole “confidence in the judgement of guilt” thing.

In 2016 149 people were exonerated and freed from American prisons after being incarcerated an average of fifteen years for crimes they did not commit. Some of these were for drug offenses and other felonies, but 54 were convicted murderers, five of whom were on death row awaiting execution. Many of those 149 were young or were mentally handicapped at the time of their conviction.

There is no way to know exactly how many people currently sitting in jail or prison are actually innocent. If you ask the prisoners I’d bet you would learn that almost all are, but I’d have trouble trusting their honesty! However, mathematical modeling by the National Academy of Sciences concludes that based on the percentage of prisoners exonerated over time we could anticipate that at least 4.1% of people currently in prison convicted of murder are innocent.

Those convicted of crimes other than murder are also a concern. The University of Michigan’s Exoneration Registry reported that 891 people convicted and serving time in prison were set free in a 13-year period beginning in 1989. And these are only the cases that were proven by The Innocence Project and other non-profit groups; one must assume other innocents were not exonerated.

So let’s just go with that 4.1% estimate and assume it applies to people convicted in American courts. Approximately 2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2013, the last year federal data were  available, and about 6.9 million adults were under the supervision of a corrections system, either actually incarcerated or under control of  probation or parole. Yep. That’s a lot of people convicted of crimes. So even if 1% of those found guilty are innocent that would be 69,000 wrongful convictions. If the 4.1% figure is accurate there are more than 282,000 innocent Americans currently under the control of local, state, or federal corrections systems.

Again, these are just estimates. I’m just making up numbers. It is impossible to know whether they are accurate. But what if they are? What if the number is even higher? Does it matter if the number is much lower if we know we have innocent people spending time in prison or being executed? What if it is only a dozen? If I’m one of that dozen it sure matters to me.

So why am I confident at least a portion of Americans convicted in court are innocent? Well, I’ve been studying courts and teaching classes on court structure and procedure for more than three decades, but I’m sure you want more evidence. You can watch this episode of Adam Ruins Everything for a sort of lighthearted approach to the subject. Adam will probably be more interesting than what I have to say, but if you insist…

In 2009 the Florida Supreme Court created the 23 member Florida Innocence Commission to determine why the state had a high rate of wrongful convictions. The Commission released its report in 2012 and listed several reasons innocent people are convicted, and the Commission’s conclusions are relevant to all American courts.

Here are the major problems identified:

  • Unreliable jailhouse snitches. Remember Marcellus Williams? He was convicted based on the testimony of two jailhouse snitches. This is a problem in about 15% of wrongful criminal convictions.
  • Eyewitness misidentification. It is estimated that eyewitnesses misidentify criminals in about 75% of the cases that are later overturned using DNA evidence. This piece in Scientific American explains why memory is not accurate. In fact, eyewitnesses often create false memories. Unfortunately juries really rely on eyewitness evidence.
  • False Confessions. A large number of innocent people have spent a lot of time behind bars because of false confessions. This often is the case when young people or those with limited intellectual abilities are subject to aggressive interrogation. They may be intimidated by authority or have other immature reasoning abilities.
  • Invalidated or Improper Scientific Evidence. Science is awesome, but it is often incomplete or overstated. In other words scientific methods used in criminal convictions often lack complete validity or are exaggerated by prosecutors. Examples of less reliable forensic evidence are bite marks (very unreliable), tire treads, fiber evidence, and hair matching. Or to be clearer, these have not been subject to thorough scientific validation, so we cannot be certain they are valid. DNA evidence is highly reliable but is often unavailable.
  • Professional Responsibility and Accountability of Both Prosecuting and Defense Attorneys. Attorneys are bound by state ethics codes but they also work in a system that expects them to do everything they can to win their case. Need I say more?

The Commission also found that an overarching problem was that the entire criminal justice system was underfunded. Prosecutors and public defenders often deal with unmanageable caseloads, crime labs are underfunded, court-appointed attorneys are paid less than they should be, police are under paid, and more.

So the bottom line? It is almost certain that an indeterminate number of people currently sitting in a prison cell or under the watchful eyes of the pardon and parole system are innocent. At least some of those folks are either serving life sentences or are awaiting execution in one of the 32 states still using the death penalty. Being wrongfully incarcerated is unacceptable. Being executed for a murder one did not commit is, in itself, criminal.

I oppose capital punishment for personal/spiritual/philosophical reasons, but not everyone shares my personal views. However, we should at least be able to agree that executing people who are innocent is unacceptable, and I believe we almost certainly have done so in the past and will do so again as long as we rely on a fallible human institution to convict people accused of crimes.

I’m glad Governor Greitens appointed a panel to review evidence used to convict Marcellus Williams, but even after that review we will not know for certain whether he is guilty or innocent. That group of five people will have an opinion. Is that enough to justify taking someone’s life?