Rendering Justice To the Justice Renderers

THERE ARE SEVEN MEMBERS of the Arkansas Supreme Court, and six of them are in hot water, or in the vernacular of a largely agrarian poultry producing region, "deep do do". The judicial jumble stems from the strong opposition of a county circuit judge to the death penalty, and his vehemence in expressing it. So vehement has his opposition to capital punishment been that the Supreme Court began considering removing him from all case in which the death penalty is an option.At that point the judge sealed his own fate, signed his own judicial death warrant, so to speak. He participated in an anti-death penalty demonstration in front of the governor's mansion where, surrounded by vociferously chanting, sign bearing demonstrators, he lay himself down on a gurney, became motionless, and emulated a corps. Whether he inadvertently dozed had not been officially ascertained at press time; presumably not, considering the clamorous cacophony of outcries ambient. Perhaps feeling a bit pushed to the brink, up struck the high court, formally removing the prostrate magistrate from all cases in which death was even remotely a remedy. In stepped the state's judicial ethics commission, formally notifying six of the seven high court members that this action constituted a violation of state judicial ethics and procedure, because they had failed to give the besieged judge sufficient opportunity to present a defense in his own defense, thus putting the six on alert for possible future sanctions against them. these could involve as little as formal wrist slapping, or as much as bench removal. the seventh high court justice was presumably spared this ignominy, which includes the requisite front page picture and implications of scandal, because of his having refrained from participating in the vendetta against the county judge's moral stance from the beginning. Said restraint turned out to be fortunate, because he may yet become the only citizen actively serving on the highest court in the state.