Defending costly executions, he writes that "justice should never be a matter of money." Will he follow that argument where it leads?
Over at Ricochet, Dennis Prager has an item mocking the California ballot initiative that could end the death penalty in the Golden State, in part because doing so would save a lot of taxpayer money.
Says Prager (emphasis added):
There's a ballot measure (in California they're called propositions) to eliminate the death penalty. The idea behind this measure, Proposition 34, is that death penalty is too expensive and therefore should be abolished. The idea is so morally vapid that it's hard to believe people would take it seriously. Justice should never be a matter of money. Do supporters of Prop. 34 really mean to suggest that, yes, heinous murderers should be executed, but because it's costly we should allow every murderer to live?
What I wonder is if Prager fully understands the implications of his argument, which I'd urge him to carry to its logical conclusion. If justice should never be a matter of money, will he start using his radio show and columns to insist that the people who perform autopsies be adequately trained and funded? Will he urge legislators to approve funds to remedy the atrocious state of forensic investigation in America, and fund "rivalrous redundancy," so that private labs would check up on the work of state-run forensic teams that often make mistakes? Will he insist on compensating the victims of guys like Steven Hayne -- or at least speak out against state laws that leave some wrongly jailed victims of prosecutorial misconduct without any state compensation at all upon their release? Will he speak up against asset-forfeiture laws that give law-enforcement agencies across the country a financial incentive to victimize innocent people?
After all, justice should never be a matter of money, right? And yet all over America, there are countless areas where additional funding could prevent innocents from being subject to unjust state action. But they are never funded, and more often than not conservatives are the ones standing in the way.