something about the documentary film "Into the Abyss" by Werner Herzog

In his review of "Into the Abyss," Roger Ebert starts off with this:

"Into the Abyss" may be the saddest film Werner Herzog has ever made. It regards a group of miserable lives, and in finding a few faint glimmers of hope only underlines the sadness.

Well said. And here, at this cross-stitch of crime and poverty, the value of life runs threadbare.

Herzog documents the people and events surrounding a triple homicide in the small city of Conroe, Texas. The crime is violent and pointless, the sentences inconsistent and accidental. We hear from the convicted suspects, the families, investigators, and prison staff. With this crowd, Herzog has stumbled into a special kind of poor--a subculture of white, angry desperation that doesn't seem to know any other way. Herzog's approach is distanced, and he rations his usual pithy but insightful commentary.

When I think of an abyss, I think of a space in which blackness persists where the eye looks for light. The film's most glaring abyss is death row inmate Michael Perry: Seeing his youthful face, we expect--almost demand--him to show us something redeeming, something innocent. But it never comes. He is incapable probably of redemption or innocence.

But an abyss is also marked by its limitlessness, and even in this senseless loss, the victims' family attempts to salvage something. And another glimmer of hope (for those opposed to capital punishment) comes from a Death Row guard's turn away from death in favor of a universal right to life.

This is a very fine documentary, an effective and subtly powerful example of the form. Through Herzog's lens, overarching pointlessness and defeat lie naked. Presented with the abyss of the human soul, we find two thoughts juxtaposed: (1) No one has the right to take a life, and (2) some people don't deserve to live. There is no answer. Just traces of a spirit deeply buried within flaws and sad stories.

Humberto Leal Garcia v. Texas

Texas executed a Mexican Thursday night. The state broke no US laws and had no binding obligation to follow International law or treaty. The man, convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl, had been in the country for several years prior to his crime, arrest, and his subsequent years of imprisonment.

The President, appealing to pending future legislation, International decorum, and potential risk to US citizens abroad, asked the Supreme Court to halt the execution. By a 5-4 decision, it did not.

The majority opinion goes unattributed. Here's highlights:

Our task is to rule on what the law is, not what it might eventually be.

... The United States and JUSTICE BREYER complain of the grave international consequences that will follow from Leal’s execution. Post, at 4. Congress evidently did not find these consequences sufficiently grave to prompt its enactment of implementing legislation, and we will follow the law as written by Congress. We have no authority to stay an execution in light of an “appeal of the President,” post, at 6, presenting free-ranging assertions of foreign policy consequences, when those assertions come unaccompanied by a persuasive legal claim.

The minority opinion includes this ...

Thus, on the one hand, international legal obligations, related foreign policy considerations, the prospect of legislation, and the consequent injustice involved should that legislation, coming too late for Leal, help others in identical circumstances all favor granting a stay. And issuing a brief stay until the end of September, when the Court could consider this matter in the ordinary course, would put Congress on clear notice that it must act quickly. On the other hand, the State has an interest in proceeding with an immediate execution. But it is difficult to see how the State’s interest in the immediate execution of an individual convicted of capital murder 16 years ago can outweigh the considerations that support additional delay, perhaps only until the end of the summer ...

... In reaching its contrary conclusion, the Court ignores the appeal of the President in a matter related to foreign affairs, it substitutes its own views about the likelihood of congressional action for the views of Executive Branch officials who have consulted with Members of Congress, and it denies the request by four Members of the Court to delay the execution until the Court can discuss the matter at Conference in September. In my view, the Court is wrong in each respect.

I respectfully dissent.

Compared to the majority opinion, the dissent sounds rather pointed.

The Casey Anthony trial and the desire to punish

The Casey Anthony trial attracted major media attention. In the NPR piece, New Republic: Beyond Whose Reasonable Doubt?, University of Colorado Law Professor Paul Campos discusses belief in the system and how high profile trials like Anthony's figure into that belief. He says that we must decide what constitutes reasonable doubt and render judgment while adhering to the belief that "mistaken acquittals are vastly preferable to wrongful convictions". The price of this jurisprudence of prudent judgement, however, may lead to "deeply disturbing" verdicts, as in the Anthony case, where the defendant likely "has gotten away with murder", thereby challenging our belief in the system. He's counseling us. And with good reason.

Indeed, I think one function of high-profile trials such as this is to show that the system "works". The media inadvertently and advertently promotes the status quo, which requires a measure of belief in the judicial system. So, the pundits screamed when the verdict was read because they think the system should have rendered a guilty verdict. That an injustice has been done may be one reason for the vigor and volume of their response, but I would suggest another reason is at play here, too.

Casey Anthony's behavior defies our expectations of what young mothers are supposed to look like and act like. Pundits wanted to punish the mother not so much for killing her child as for the way she behaved after the death. What constituted evidence also constituted her crimes: Getting the tattoo and going to night clubs.

The concept of a mother who does not cherish her child challenges the ideal of the self-policing individual and the centralized interest in the protection and regulation of life. Media figures apparently salivated in agreement at the prospect of punishing Anthony, building a consensus among the public that the young woman was guilty and deserved punishment.