Editorials and commentary about Morales case

In addition to all the capital headlines I assembled here, this morning’s papers have a lot of interesting editorials and commentary prompted by California’s struggles to kill Michael Morales (background here and here).

From the San Jose Mercury News: “The nature of the death penalty obligates the state to put every aspect of the process under a microscope “

From the Los Angeles Times: “Like the crimes for which it is a punishment, the death penalty is an affront to civilized society.  It should not be reformed — it should be abolished.”

And I especially liked two commentaries from the San Francisco Chronicle that highlight the paradox of heightened concerned about protocols: one notes that “any debate over what’s inhumane about the death penalty ought to be about the death part.  Isn’t the death itself a bit more critical, ethically speaking, than the manner in which the death is brought about?”; and another says it “is a sure sign of a society’s decline when the governing elite care more about how things are done than what they do.”