A Word or Two on Scott Peterson

This will be quite short as I have scarcely followed this sordid mess at all.

James Lileks offers the following on why he thinks the death penalty was too easy for Peterson.

You could say that the death penalty is too easy. Too quick. It spares him the hard work. From now on he will be concerned with the thoughts of his own demise, and his end will be as selfish as his life. Why rush? Let him sit. Let him think. Let him spend a decade or two avoiding his crime until it infests his dreams to the point where he prefers the needle to another ration of sleep.

And if he never faces up to what he's done? Then he's spent half a century staring at a concrete wall, after which he dies — alone, unloved, forgotten.

Nice angle, but I think the good Mr. Lileks has forgotten something. Scott Peterson's lifelong torture would have also included a more earthy component that would no doubt have had something to do with his more dominant inmates.

And then, like one domino toppling another, Lileks's point that death was too good for Peterson takes some of the thunder out of Ann Coulter's column about Mark Geragos' losing record as an attorney. If we accept Lilek's logic, this trial was indeed his greatest triumph as an attorney!

At least [political consultant and eight-time loser of presidential races] Bob Shrum's client only has to go back to the Senate. Geragos' client Scott Peterson has been sentenced to death.

This came as no surprise to those who have followed the fate of Geragos' other hapless clients throughout the years. (Or, to be fair, the evidence against Peterson.)

But if death is too good a penalty for Peterson, Glenn Reynolds has probably best summed up his greatest service to mankind: the story of his murder trial served as a flag that there was no real news to report!

My main feeling is disappointment that it's over: For many, many months I've been able to look up at TVs in bars, restaurants, the gym, etc. -- and when the Peterson trial was on, I knew right away that there was no actual news to report. Now I've lost that valuable tool.

How's that for an epitaph?

-- CAV