Mitt Romney, a foolproof death penalty system, and tinkering with the machinery of death

I had a chance to talk with a reporter today about whether the Baze case and broader capital punishment issues might become a topic in the 2008 election campaign.  While saying “anything is possible” when it comes to the politics of the death penalty, I was reminded of the interesting encounter that candidate Mitt Romney had with death penalty politics when governor of Massachusetts.

As noted in my very first blog post, back in 2004 then-Governor Romney created by an 11-member death penalty commission to attempt to establish a nearly “foolproof” death penalty system for Massachusetts.  That committee produced a very interesting report — which, intriguingly, is no longer easily accessible on-line [Update: S.cotus found the report] — that became a Romney-backed bill for bringing the death penalty back to the Bay State.  However, as this amazing article from the Boston Phoenix highlights, Romney’s capital punishment bill proved to be an extraordinary political disaster.  (The full title of the Boston Phoenix article is “The sudden death of Romney’s dream: What once seemed like a clever ploy has become a political and policy disaster for the governor.”)

Could Romney’s bad experience with capital punishment politics in part explain why none of the presidential candidates have so far said boo about all the recent lethal injection controversies?