Now now, my city councilman is named Chad, and he’s fucking awesome. He even joined our neighborhood Facebook group chat and responds almost immediately to issues (like reporting to the city engineers when water pressure drops).

Passion is cheap, law is hard. It’s ridiculously hard to set your passions aside in cases like these, but it should be done. The state should not have the ability to kill their citizens based on a legal process they also control at all levels. It only takes a slight reduction in criteria for evidence or severity to put us all in danger as citizens. I know you generally agree, but I think it’s worth stating. This man should be in prison for the rest of his life, but we all lose when we let the state indulge our passions.