Suer Service

Tort-reform is shorthand for controlling a parasitic and predatory profession whose rank cynicism and insatiable greed are corrupting our culture and burdening our economy.

I don’t want to sound alarmist but they are a mortal threat to life on the planet, and the probable cause of global warming.

The possibly great state of Mississippi has enacted, after a protracted struggle, legislation that “disincentivizes” the piratical practices of those who would use the law the way a mugger uses a gun.

Mississippi is recovering after a long siege, witness job creation, greater access to health care, reduction in costs, an accelerated economy and the drop in law school enrollments (a trend, one hopes). All this translates into quality of life improvements.

Yet those who would reform tort-reform and recreate a climate hospitable to legal extortion are gathering and gathering strength.

Threat to a tradition

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board) to Indiana’s voter ID law. The usual suspects (ACLU-ACORN-Brennan Center) arrayed against the forces of reason and experience. They argued that having to establish your identity by means of a photo ID, provided free of charge, by the State was an onerous burden meant to disenfranchise the equally usual suspects (society’s most vulnerable and least equipped).

The State in uncharacteristic wisdom sought only to defend the integrity of the vote by tethering it to a reasonable responsibility. Establish your identity.

Those most discommoded by the newly upheld requirement were likely intent on committing voter fraud. Though a venerable practice in Democratic circles the Court is to be commended for threatening this tradition.

Seven to two

The Supreme Court found that the three drug lethal injection procedure as practiced by the State of Kentucky does not violate the rights of the condemned. The avoidance of all pain was not required to comply with the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

I should hope not.

The avoidance of all pain would be an unrealistic standard applied to a digital prostate exam, Brazilian bikini waxing or a session with a dental hygienist, let alone an execution.

Evolving standards of decency, frequently cited, seldom displayed, have heightened our concern for the discomfort that the mass murderer might experience. Not just the physical distress, but the mental anguish that could result in a life long fear of electric chairs.

Admittedly the death penalty now seems but a relic of harsher times, when society in its naiveté thought it had the right to punish homicidal maniacs.